with that girl he met at the mall and his mother

beating on a door

even the psychic detective can’t open.

THE PSYCHIC DETECTIVE: DIVINITY

He stepped out of the dark.

He was the dark

with his chloroform, his duct tape.

He’d been waiting since dawn,

but he really hadn’t been, maybe an hour

after a long hot shower,

steam seeping into every pore of his body.

The body wash after,

damask rose and sandalwood.

He liked to smell good.

It countered the other odor just enough

to soothe and calm the prey

until they recognized him for who he was.

I knew the smell mixed in

with the thin metallic odor

on the victim’s clothes

folded so carefully

and laid beneath her head

and in her hands a rosary

of large black beads,

the kind the nuns at St. Anthony’s

wore on their wide black leather belts,

when I was twelve

and doing time in Catholic school

which answers questions possibly

about the villain of this piece.

Perhaps the victim’s death

helped ease some guilt

he’d carried with him,

while talking with friends,

wearing a slight smile,

a twinkle in his eyes

for this was a guy of guys,

not the type you’d imagine

who would kill

until something unleashed the will to murder.

Was it seeing the nuns

gliding down the esplanade at dusk,

the musk of sanctity

too much for him to bear

as the memory of some incident

returned to him with such a vengeance

he had no choice but to act and save himself!

She was the sacrifice he made

to his depraved self

and he is, believe me.

Father Thomas told him so

in confession when he was thirteen

and after a night of touching himself

he let go at last

when he imagined how it would feel

to choke his little sister.

He confessed

and was given absolution.

Father Thomas said,

“One hundred Hail Mary’s, Kevin

and ask your mother to come see me.”

His mother never went to Mass.

His father did

and the priest hadn’t said to ask him,

so he said nothing about it,

only avoided the confessional

and when his parents separated,

he never went to Mass again.

Kevin often caught his father

looking at him in such a way

it made him wonder

but then one day his father was gone,

taking his little sister.

He stayed with his mother

and made the best of it

and never wondered much about

that fit of adolescent sexual confusion

or whatever it was

that had made him confess in the first place.

Better to keep quiet about such impulses,

about the riot of feelings

which assualted him

for years until the night

they overwhelmed him

and overcame the obstacle

to the desire he’d tried to ignore.

It was a fire, it was burning him

like the need to preach and convert.

Bob laughs and shakes his head

and asks me if I’ve been drinking

and says, “He’s just a warped little shit