After years of spiritual work,
he began seeing the light inside
people’s souls.
Some were brighter than others,
like father Morgan, his parish priest,
whose soul was a radiant white.
The light in some souls was barely visible,
like the man on the TV news who’d been arrested
for robbing the First National Bank.
One day a beautiful woman smiled at him
in a way that was like a flirtation.
But he saw only darkness in her soul;
something he hadn’t seen before,
and he got an eerie feeling
that prevented him from smiling back at her.
At first, he didn’t understand the full meaning
of her soul’s disturbing darkness
until he saw a documentary about serial killers,
who had the same darkness in their souls.
He heard the beautiful woman’s husband had
recently died of natural causes at age 38.
From what he saw in her soul, he knew better.
Bob Boyd