A Smart Girl by Stepy Kamei

A Smart Girl
by Stepy Kamei

I’m thinking about that Forensic Files episode
With the 28-year-old waitress who was attacked, bound and 
Gagged in her own home

Before she was killed, the killer looked away
Long enough for her to 

Scoot

To his pants, grab one of his business cards from his pocket
And crumple it in her fist

So when investigators found her body, they found 
The evidence.

Smart girl,
She was praised.

Smart girl for thinking like that in her final moments.

I hate that we praise a girl for being
Smart enough to know how to catch her killer.

Too late for anything real, anything
Of substance for her.

Her body’s still cold, she’ll always be
Twenty-eight.

That’s nothing.

Rather she’d be here than be

A smart girl.

Hear Stepy Kamei recite the poem on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast:

Stepy Kamei writes, reads, and lives in California. Her work has appeared in journals including Gyroscope Review, FIVE:2:ONE Magazine, Grim and Gilded, The Pointed Circle, and Calamus Journal. She received her B.A. in Linguistics from San Francisco State University. She can be found @somelaughingghosts on Instagram.