Making Amends

He is making amends to his victims

in a swarm of their ghosts, enduring

the blades, beatings, wringing hands—

each angry shade tearing at his soul

as their own deaths rebloom and blacken.

For thirty years, few women walked

that city alone. In dreams they shrank

beneath his police sketch, took to prayer

in the gore of his wake. The law’s eyes

went bloodshot seeking answers.

When at last he died in old age, a pack

of shades broke from limbo, scurried

like bats to the gates of hell. There they

howled and wept and dragged him away.

He is making amends to his victims.

(From the book The Hunchback's Captive and Others)