Mary was a kind old girl.

She liked to tickle me and make me laugh,

but I couldn’t say that, could I?

She was as black as the iron skillet

she fried chicken in, her face gleaming

like it had been polished with a jeweler’s cloth.

She called me her baby

and she rocked me to sleep,

but I didn’t say a word when that old boy

hit her body with a rock

and said, “Another one dead,”

and told me if I needed any more help

he was ready.

I didn’t have anything to say. It was over.

From then on, we avoided talking about it

the way people do when they’re ashamed,

but we weren’t ashamed, no, not that.

We were justified.

THE PSYCHIC DETECTIVE: IDENTITY

I follow the blood trail from the front door,

down the dark hall with the pristine walls,

only to find upon entering the kitchen,

the kind of crime scene I can sink my teeth into

if that’s the right term to use

and it isn’t and I know it,

but back to the action, or my reaction

which is not to show it,

but to go about my business,

because I am a professional

and this is not a confessional,

but I repeat, a crime scene

complete with corpse

slumped beside the sliding glass door

in the patio, set up for a party,

judging from the paper plates, styrofoam cups

on the picnic table under colored lights.

Who did they burn for tonight, I wonder,

then I don’t because I won’t let myself.

I have to focus on the dear departed

now entering a state of rigor mortis.

I sniff the air. There it is,

the smell of death,

or is it my own sweat, my own fear

beaten down to its knees,

so I can do what needs to get done,

so I can walk through blood,

as if it’s nothing but a slight inconvenience,

so I can show this corpse how bad I am,

a man with a badge and a gun isn’t afraid

of anyone and by God I’m not, I tell myself,

as I shut off the water in the sink.

Did the killer get thirsty

from all that dirty work?

Did he take a drink, then sink his teeth

into her, because that looks like a bite

on her right thigh and there on her breast.

Did he break the rules this time

and mix business with pleasure,

which is why he got so mad he broke the pattern

of his attacks and mutilated her,

or was it another monster who attacked,

having read enough about the other

to want to imitate, then outdo him

and embark on his own

secession from the human race?

But who am I kidding? It could have been anything

the devil, a dog or a devil dog

ordering him to do his bidding

and not the cold, calculating killer

who left her with her pubis artistically exposed,

because he’s an artist, I suppose,