Leslie Ann Merrimac

Leslie Ann Merrimac had bruises all around her neck
 And a silver trail of latch-hooks down her back
 Strings of pearls tied to each
 Tethered to her husband's reach
 She seldom felt a slack upon her leash
 As a child he
 gathered critters large and small
 Built devices
 for dismembering them all
 It began in '91, when Leslie Ann was rather young
 Her father had passed on and she moved out to Bloomington
 Feeling desperate and alone
 She thought she had found love
 In the strong but silent, somewhat violent preacher's eldest son
 He was a monster
 With a ghoulish overbite
 Raised a hand to her
 To keep her wandering eye in line
 Leslie Ann Merrimac dressed head to toe in funeral black
 Never shared her loving husband's bed
 Slept in corners standing upright
 As he gripped the pearls tight
 Pains splashed down her spine throughout the night
 He would beat her
 As his father had done to him
 With a leather strap
 Left rosy welts across her chest
 Leslie Ann Merrimac woke to find her husband dead
 One winter's eve he passed on in his sleep
 Rigor mortis had set in
 And while struggling from his grip
 Bent a hook and in her spine, broke off a pin
 Pearls rained down
 Bounced along the hardwood floor
 A frosty numb crept in
 And her eyes fell closed once more
 On a cemetery hill
 Along a row of pines
 She was buried by her loving husband's side