the crime

The Crime

In a hidden cove where the sand is white in moonlight
and lovers go to get away from the throng, they found,
after winter storm, rolled in a red beach towel- half
buried in the sand- the skeleton of the three years girl
who disappeared from her hotel room when her parents
were out dining, a summer night, the year before.
The back of her skull was broken and the coroner said
she had been murdered by persons unknown.

The child was buried in a Portuguese cemetery, they
are always so beautiful, pictures and white marble,
many people came, her parents too; a swell of flowers,
there were tears and a local celebrity sang; good she
was found, “closure” the papers called it, a word oft
used these days. Mourners said it was like Princess
Diana’s funereal, smaller scale of course. Murder case
filed, the police could do little, till someone confessed.