The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp <br />Set fire to the house <br />They were trying Dr. Duval <br />For the murder of Zora Clemens, <br />And I sat in the court two weeks <br />Listening to every witness. <br />It was clear he had got her in a family way; <br />And to let the child be born <br />Would not do. <br />Well, how about me with eight children, <br />And one coming, and the farm <br />Mortgaged to Thomas Rhodes? <br />And when I got home that night, <br />(After listening to the story of the buggy ride, <br />And the finding of Zora in the ditch,) <br />The first thing I saw, right there by the steps, <br />Where the boys had hacked for angle worms, <br />Was the hatchet! <br />And just as I entered there was my wife, <br />Standing before me, big with child. <br />She started the talk of the mortgaged farm, <br />And I killed her.<br /><br />Edgar Lee Masters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/barry-holden/
