#20: May 13, 2006

Ted Smith was thirty when he choked and died
(a turkey sandwich on rye was the cause);
The grief drove his wife Jane to suicide
(two shotgun barrels applied beneath the jaws);

Their children, understandably upset
(Nellie was nine, poor Josh was only four),
Entered a pact--they'd show this cruel world yet!
(It wasn't going to hurt them anymore.)

The siblings propped each other up quite well
(they made it through their twenties with a pulse);
Though not without a cost, I'm sad to tell
(they seemed such normal, likable adults):

Policemen found eight heads beneath Nell's floor
(and in her brother's backyard thirteen more).