500

Kimberly Lagayle McCarthy, 52
Number 500 of Texas death-row inmates
Killed by state-sanctioned lethal injection
since 1982, the lusting for death penalty
renewed and made possible
she deserved it, they said. At least they
knew on June 26, 2013 that she
had "done the deed" sixteen
years earlier: in a crack-induced
rage, fiending she killed
a 71-year-old retired professor
It was brutal, unforgiving
A butcher knife
a candelabra
stab/beat/stab/beat
then used the crimson-filled blade
to sever her left ring finger
and take the wedding band
there is no doubt--she did it
it was brutal, maybe evil
crack-induced rage as it was
Right before they gave her 
the last drug she could fiend,
she had the state-ordered meal:
pepper steak, mash potatoes with gravy, 
mixed vegetables, 
white cake with chocolate icing
Maybe she's not the case
to ask Texas why they've
killed more people since 1986
than the next 6 states
combined, why Texas has
a death lust, why the state
can't be more creative in building
a more perfect union than
killing its citizens--some proven
"not guilty," but that doesn't 
bother Governor Rick Perry who says:
I never lose a bit of sleep over it.
And what kind of person
doesn't lose sleep over death
laid at their feet? Who sleeps easy
with that smell in their nostril?
What kind of crazy easy is that?
How you eat steak/potatoes with gravy
and top it off with cake 500 times
and not even blink?

© Valerie Bridgeman

June 29, 2013