G. Frink's

Pat Riviere-Seel's volume of poetry entitled "The Serial Killer's Daughter" was inspired by the life and 1984 execution of Velma Barfield.

Velma Barfield murdered at least four people, among them her mother. She also committed arson, although not as a murder weapon.

She received the death penalty for using arsenic-based rat poison to kill Stuart Taylor in 1978, and was executed in North Carolina's Central Prison on Nov. 2, 1984.

The poem below is excerpted from "The Serial Killer's Daughter."

Pat explains that it is "in the daughter's voice."

A Second Look

After the funeral I returned
to the burned house, the walls'
scorched black odor of smoke
heavy as my sorrow.

Look here, a room spared.
All can be repaired, a neighbor tried
to offer comfort. I know better.
Whatever happened here
turned to ash. What did I expect --
understanding? Explanation?

Yesterday, when we left
him alone, passed out on the bed,
I should have insisted
that Mama drive away, could
have kept her in the car.
I didn't ask why she went
back inside the house.

Daddy had asked for Winstons.
We stopped for ice cream.
She didn't buy him cigarettes.

"The Serial Killer's Daughter" was a runner up in the Main Street Rag Publishing Company's 2008 Chapbook Contest.

Past president of the North Carolina Poetry Society, and a friend since we were at North Carolina State University together, @Pat Reviere-Seel also has a published collection of poems called No Turning Back Now.