THE BURIEL OF REBECCA LUTES

By Philip Youden

In the backwoods of New Brunswick

a body is buried, face down

in a concrete grave. A farm girl found guilty

of witchcraft, dragged from her home

in stifling heat, parents tormented

by strangled screams, sixteen-year-old ankles

twitching obscene as she hung from the branch

of a poplar tree.

The legend speaks of an eerie glow roaming

the fields of her childhood home,

tortured moans telling sordid tales of a secret

concealed. The story lives on

but the records are sealed, some skeletons

are too grim to be hidden in closets, they’re buried

in the backwoods of New Brunswick,

sealed under a concrete slab in a graveyard

called history.

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