She walked in,
“what is all this?”
she asked
She put on her glasses,
examining the evidence.
She recognized my finger prints on it.
My words spilled out on the table,
Labeled like a crime scene
on the kitchen floor.
She stopped beside me,
a pile of blood-stained papers
lay like an offering at her feet.
“Don’t step on those,”
I said,
“those are the good ones.”
“And this?”
she said,
pointing to the cold disemboweled
body of the typewriter
lying beside me,
outlined in chalk.
“It looks violent,
was it a ritual killing?”
she asked.
“No,
more of a mercy killing”
I confessed.
“You know you have the right to remain silent?”
she said.
“I know”
I said
“But I prefer not to.”
Gould is a native of Gladstone. He has published four books of poetry — most recently, “Last Rites for the Lion Tamer” — and is a member of the Somerset Poetry Group, Frenchtown Poetry Group, New Hope Beat Poets, and Carriage House Poetry. He has been published in various newspapers and literary journals including the U.S. 1 Summer Fiction issue.
