When Bea McConnell disappeared,
she was only eight years old,
and because of what our parents feared
the neighborhood went cold.
We saw the posters everywhere,
the broken nose, the curls.
The frightened words above her hair
said Have You Seen This Girl?
We started locking doors at night
though we never did before.
No matter the hour, we burned the light
that hung above our door.
Police put corpse-dogs on the trail
and dragged the quarry lake.
They looked in every open well
in hopes the case would break.