Vickie Sue Metzger was raped and murdered in June 1990 alone near a rest stop in Tennessee.

Mary Byron was raped and then murdered a few weeks later in December 1993 in Louisville, KY in her car in a mall parking lot.

Poem by Mary Sue Barnett

She stands at the
Mouth of the cave
Her name is Mystery
And she summons you
To stand there too

“Reach!” she says
Your heart and hand
Into the depths
For Vickie and Mary
To touch their death
And to touch their life

“Look!” she says
The men’s rage, it
Howls like a typhoon
Wind, and the women’s
Fragile safety vanquished
Do you see God?

“See!” she says
The men rape, like
A burning fire, searing
Saltpetre driven deep
Into their soft pores
Do you see God?

“Watch!” she says
As one man pulls a trigger
And another crushes bones
The earth quakes with
Brute force and bullets
That swallow and eat
The two women
Do you see God?

Mystery is her name
She stands, arms in
Orans position, at
The mouth of the cave
And she summons you
To stand there too
“Hear!” she says
God is not
In the fire, nor
In the quake
God is not
In the wind, nor
On the plate

For God is in
The bodies of
Vickie Sue and Mary
Consumed with them
By black darkness
And ashen white
Of violent death
God is never in
Male annihilators
But co-mingles
With the women in
The nothingness of
Rape and Femicide

Mystery persists at
The mouth of the cave
And she summons you
To stand there too
“Come out!” she calls forth
The two women and God
To dance the dance of
No fear, No pain
Together, inextricably
God in the women’s bodies
Vivid and mobile, dipping
Spinning and turning
Under the pink eternal sky
Where they become new
Ever free and alive
Vickie Sue, Mary, and God
In the loving arms of Mystery

This is where God is
In the bodies of women
Celebrate, and then
Rebuild the world.