Prime Cut [ Christine Jackson ]

A narrow, wet street at night.
The police monitor screen reads 8:17 pm,
seconds rolling. A dark SUV inches 
into the frame, rain glinting in headlights.
The vehicle sidles to the curb,
and headlights shut off.
I answer that it could be ours,
hard to tell with no view of the tag.

The driver’s door swings open, 
and a wraith in a ball cap gets out, 
light shorts and t-shirt. My eyeballs 
go soft. The figure vanishes.

Light floods the witness room.
No footage of the SUV leaving.
I blink, surrounded by eyes,  
concerned, inquisitive.
No, I shake my head. That’s not him.

Talking too fast, I say I had dinner
with friends downtown, home 
by 10:00. There he was, sprawled 
on the couch watching TV. 
Detectives raise curious eyebrows. 

They toss me a name, his hair stylist’s, 
announce she is missing. My shoulders 
twitch. Last time he had a cut? No idea.
You could check at her shop. 
Did you know about their affair? 
No. He wasn’t with her that night.

I was. My mind plays it back. I lure
her into the van, drive her to Wolf 
Lake. It’s a long drop from the rim
of the overlook.  

I’ll call if I think of anything else.

Christine Jackson is retired from her day job, professor of literature and creative writing at a South Florida university.  She continues to clock in on a life-long night shift writing poetry.  Her work appears in an array of online journals, including Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, and Anti Heroin Chic.