Soft veil of dusk weaves naked trees

Whilst Nature’s blanket covers dense

A sudden searing strike of steel

Rends stark in woodland’s quiescence

Blind covert, far from watcher’s eye

Provides seclusion, duellist’s stage

Seconds sought the perfect place

To vent dissatisfaction’s rage

Blade on blade the duellists clash

In perilous debates of strength

‘til finally a mirrored lunge

Renders both to prostrate length

As congregates strive to conclude

Which of ...if either ...man respires

A moan escapes one cadaver

They rush to aid the man’s desires

Grotesquely, crooked masks did mock

His fast declining victor’s eye

As briskly carried through the mist

His rival’s corpse was borne awry

Thus Poirot calls on Cardinal

To claim his conquest as his dues

Whilst Harlequin and his comrades

Dispel into the wood’s dark hues

Then lifted by his loyal friends

His body cold, resigned to death

And taken from this sordid scene

The champion spends his final breath

No witness left but distant beasts

To trample footprints out of site

‘til nothing save the tinted snow

Reveals the bloodshed of the night.