The Erl King

The pigtailed child, and the tall man

(handsome, upright, someone to trust)

walk down Shady Lane

as day turns to night, as the moon

swings into view, replacing the sun.

He is telling her stories

to lighten the last lap home.

She is holding his hand, for fear,

And for love of the sound of his voice

Caressing his much loved crimes:

Adelaide Bartlett, Lizzie Borden,

Rillington Place, Brides in the Bath,

Florence Maybrick. Best of all, worse

than all of them, Jack the Ripper

slashing his tarts. She’s seen the pictures:

blood-boltered bodies gutted like kippers.

“Go on, go on”, she says, needing more

blood and gore, vivid enough for a packet

of nightmares: women dissolving in acid,

stabbed, bludgeoned, vomiting arsenic,

murderers caught, hanged by the neck

until they were dead. The child enthralled.

Her father enthralled. They are avid

for evil, for the dark side of the moon.

Chris Davis