Serial Killer

Sometimes I remember how
he carted the bodies frozen
across interstate cement
in his truck’s refrigerated maw.

Other times I see girls
like the ones he selected –
runaways already married
to danger, a past that bore

no repeating.  Slender girls
with large dark eyes,
winsome above a boyish
flatness barely hinting

at a womanhood still
distant.  What I pray
is that the first blow
was an outright kill.

That he wasn’t too excited
to aim well and execute
swiftly before laying
each one out

inside his stainless tundra.
Rock-hard flesh and
frozen hair later
jettisoned into scrub

besides stagnant ditches
next to a highway’s
curling cement ribbon
leading to the next

tender girl.