Rosie Roberts + 

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.” + 