Thunder crashed, lightning ricocheted.
Midnight’s blackened sky, awake and crazed.
That November twenty-fifth’s sheets of rain
pounded city streets, pummeled harbor’s shore.
Boston slept oblivious
unaware his curse was about to end.
Thirteen tormented souls,
dead to family
never truly laid to rest.
Thirteen deaths so violent,
they could not ascend.
Could not transition to another world.
Ten years, condemned to a different form.
Thirteen ravens, always together.
Never to alight on ground, seen by no one.
But this night, this was an anomaly.
They flew this night in frenzied disbelief.
Is he truly gone?
Lightning’s last gash flashed garishly.
Split open darkness. Revealed their final path.
You shall rest at last, the heavens proclaimed.
He is gone. Your deaths are avenged.
NAPOWRIMO Day 24. Prompt: Write a poem that takes place at night, and describes something magical or strange that happens but that no one is awake (or around) to notice.
Albert DeSalvo: For some reason, my mind went to the story of the Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo. He murdered 13 women between 1962 and 1964, terrorizing the city. Most of the women were sexually assaulted and strangled in their homes. He was never tried for these crimes but was sentenced to life in prison for other sexual assault crimes. He was stabbed to death in prison on November 25, 1973.
lillian the home poet 