Serial Killer Sonnet
Jeff Walt
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2015 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Margaret Reid, Traditional Verse
My father held my child face in a bowl
of hot Quaker Oats, claimed me a mistake—
cross-eyed, dork, zit-faced mocked, bullied in school.
I couldn't burn a ball across home plate
fierce comet the way his tight stare pleaded.
Drunk he lassoed and roped me to a tree—
punched my stomach: faggot, pussy, geek
said he could bludgeon the girl out of me.
Ten years since the first time I killed and felt
relief—his Holy vitriol eviscerated
from the bodies of the women I held
down, dragged bleeding and begging for breath.
Now, across the table I watch the old man eat;
men plead the return of their daughters on TV.
