Reading True Crime

Read much true crime when I was young.
From articles in magazines about Jane Does
and Johns, the non-identified reduced
to CGI on some old database. The icons
of depravity, the baby killers, Bluebeards, more.
The kids who’ll never walk back in the door.

Don’t read much true crime now.
The borderline illiterate
who kept his daughter like a slave;
the cultured man whose instincts ran
to grinding bones in a gunmetal lathe,
are far too gauche and uninspiring.

Depravity’s not something new,
but rather something that’s missing.