I Touched the Hand of Evil

When just a boy

the seedling sprouted bracken

twined in rot.

And spectacled men sought him out.

Rolling up the sleeves of their crisp

white shirts and standing ready

to exhume answers with the tender touch

of hands grown soft yet

sure as the stroke of a pen

                   they asked him

What do boys grow up to be?

Men, said he.

Good, very good, said they

jotting notes in blots of ink.

And Girls, they asked him next

What do girls grow up to be?

Oh, said he, and sure he was

certainly as sure as they could ever be

and just as certainly never as soft.

Girls grow up to be punished.

And as he grew his hands

neither tender nor soft

unearthed answers of a different sort

solutions buried under bracken

twined in rot

and blood.

And his grip like bracken

twined around a young girl’s throat

firm and sure as they choked her life away.

Yes. If girls grow up to be punished

his were a punisher’s hands

sure and firm

dark with graveyard dirt and nails

as yellow as the devil’s teeth

too thick too long untrimmed and

primed to catch scrapes

of flesh and blood --

his own mechanics’ grease.

         Yet he had no pride for engines.

He favored the trunk

a space big enough to hold someone

ready to be punished.

In between he handled coins

and crisp dollar bills.

The dollar bills I gave him.

The coins he gave me.

And in that transaction

so like yet so unlike any other

on any given day

I touched him

his grave-stained hands

his yellow deviled nails.

Yes.

I touched the hand of evil

the punisher

the bracken twined in rot

and the throats of four young girls

who never grew up at all

•  In memory of the young victims of Leslie Allan Williams, and in gratitude of the Oakland County (Michigan) Police, who arrested Williams in time to save the life of victim #5, and God only knows how many others.

Killed between 1991 – 1992:

• Kami Marie Villaneuva, 18
• Cynthia Jones, 16
• Michelle Urbin, 16
• Melissa Urbin, 14