Orange Socks

On a hot Texas summer day, her life interrupted
by Henry who claimed her, his friend Ottis…who
named her, killers of all they could not comprehend,

both of them hopeless psychopaths, lyin’, schemin’,
drinkin’, druggin’, and killin’ ladies of the night
and those lonely discarded people with a blind

trusting soul who might love them back for the right
price and the time it took to squeeze the life right out
of them, dreams abandoned on the roadside, always

stalking the highways hunting for prey and pocket change,
a purse, earrings, a bracelet, or just for the pure erotic
pleasure of it, watching the essence of life run out onto

the back seat of a car, her listless body slumped
over, her eyes wide open, vacant, void of life,
then like garbage dumped on a desolate exit ramp

alone, naked except for socks, nameless, forgotten by all who
ever knew her, or never would, she remains unclaimed, this
unidentified girl forever known only as Orange Socks.

C. Dawson Worley
© 2008