The Couple Who Loved Murder

There once was a man, and he had a wife;
   each plotted to take the other one's life
   because they shared, to the point of addiction,
   a love for crime and detective fiction.

“If I were to kill you,” she told him one night,
   “I'd not muss my hair with a messy knife fight.
I'd soften you up with a blow from a sap,
   then shoot you to give you your eternal nap.”

“Thanks, that's appealing,” he said with a smile,
    “When I rub you out I'll do it with style.
I'll give you a pair of grey cement pumps
   then into the river, your body I'll dump.”

When they were through with this parlor game
   they'd turn it around, so it wasn't the same.
This time each spouse was allowed to pick
   how he or she'd like the bucket to kick.

“I think, if you must, how I'd like to go
   is to be drugged and left to die in the snow,”
   he told her one night, as they went to bed.
It was her turn to top him so here's what she said:

“I've always thought that I'd like to be strangled,”
   she mused with head high and chin slightly angled.
“I'd gurgle last words as you choked me to death,
   and curse you quite foully with my dying breath.”

“Hmm, that's a good one,” he mused out loudly.
“You'd wear the red marks on your neck quite proudly
   in your humble coffin, while folks glare at me,
   and curse to themselves that I got off go scot free.”

Then with a frisson they'd pull up the covers
   and underneath clutch tight like doomed, tragic lovers.
There's nothing to spice up the beast with two backs
  than the fear if you let go you might just get whacked.