I was sick, but more than that, I was mad At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life. So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria: “I am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River, Gradually wasting away. But come and take me, I killed the son Of the merchant prince, in Madam Lou’s, And the papers that said he killed himself In his home while cleaning a hunting gun— Lied like the devil to hush up scandal, For the bribe of advertising. In my room I shot him, at Madam Lou’s, Because he knocked me down when I said That, in spite of all the money he had, I’d see my lover that night.”