Bon Dieu
The news of your drowning burst a pipe
in our kitchen, my lover's face scalloped
with panic. Because I do not believe
in coincidence, because I know that everything
happens because someone has made it happen,
we packed up our children and stayed in a hotel.
When we returned the next morning, the children
squealed at the minnows shimmering against the linoleum.
The super, hunched over a bucket of seaweed,
looked up and my infant daughter resting on my hip.
She did this, he said, then he pointed at the birthmark,
shaped like a squid, etched along her chin,
That mark, it means she has a special power.
I tucked my lover into our waterlogged bed.
The dog didn't make it, he said. I'll bury her
in the morning. That night, the moon was
whiter than a whale and the neighbors
across the courtyard made love wildly.
I stood at my bedroom window and listened
as my boys busied themselves, scooping out lobsters
from behind the radiator and my baby girl,
playing telephone with a conch shell,
warned you never to set foot in this house again.
Copyright Credit: Rachel McKibbens, "Bon Dieu" from Into the Dark & Emptying Field. Copyright © 2013 by Rachel McKibbens. Reprinted by permission of Rachel McKibbens.
Source: Into the Dark & Emptying Field (Small Doggies Press, 2013)