How dark were those woods?
How cold and uninviting?
How lonely they must have seemed
In twilight’s macabre lighting?

How cold was that river
As you lay naked
Hogtied inside it?
While your bodies ran dry of
Blood, I wonder if your killer
Delighted.

I was born with one of you,
The other two beside us.
We could not yet grow facial hair
When the demon crept inside us.

Were you their killer,
Father Damien,
The Boogeyman of Memphis?
Sometimes I’m not so convinced
When you proclaim your innocence.

-Joshua A. Woodard