I Am Not A Murderer!

It might be a dream;

A girl has been killed.

I knew her.

 

They’ve unearthed body parts

in the vacant lot.

I was seen there.

American gothic neighbors

mingle and rubberneck

in menacing tableau.

 

They pepper me with questions;

“I don’t know, I wasn’t there,”

I plead guiltily.

 

The lot is no longer vacant,

but full of overturned trees,

oblong people, bones.

 

I’m sure I am innocent—

She rode a banana-seat bike

with a pink basket.

 

I am stabbed in the arm

with a hypo

for a DNA test.

 

Or so it is explained to me.

I feel the brush of

a hemlock branch.

 

I am greyly informed: all tests

will be conducted,

all fibers analyzed.

 

Though I’m sure it’s a dream,

I play along to be

on the safe side,

 

And still there’s the chance

the little girl will

show up, alive,  

having never seen

her before

 

I will see her

once as clear

as a Cottingley fairy

 

skidding up the gravel drive

any minute now

on her pink bike.

 

About the author:
Luke Powers teaches English at Tennessee State University, an historically black college in Nashville, TN. He moonlights as a songwriter and has recorded with Garth Hudson of The Band and Richard Lloyd of Television.

Tagged poetry