"The Repainted Devil, Part III" by Giovanni Dania

The Repainted Devil, Part III

Summer dresses can soak up a lot of blood, let me tell you.
Does the job nicely.
She must have been an undergrad, trying to make an evening class.
I guess she shouldn’t have been on those railroad tracks.

She smiled nervously, as she approached me.
But I'm so nondescript that she quickly forgot about me as she passed.
I had time to smell her hair before grabbing her by the neck
And shoving her into some well-placed bushes at the side of the tracks.
Her hair smelled real nice,
Must've just washed it.

She'd stumbled on some cinder blocks, and her book bag unbalanced her.
She broke her nose when she fell.
That's when I learned the utility of summer dresses.

I drowned out her pathetic whimpering by cracking her skull
With a two-by-four conveniently there.
The nervous smile, then the dismissal,
The memory of that fueled me.
It didn't take long:
She eventually shut up.

Pure satisfaction filled me to near bursting.
I almost regretted putting down the board,
It felt so good.

Well, at least to me.

July 14, 2003