The Cursing Stones

There were eight stones on the altar near the lake, moss-covered

and sitting in depressions like fossil eggs.

All around the grass was lush and saturated after rain,

my footsteps left a little pathway through it.

I won’t pretend that I didn’t feel slightly ridiculous,

never having been superstitious, but I wasn’t  likely to use a gun;

I paused a while then turned all eight ninety degrees anticlockwise;

paused another moment in reconsideration, then hurried away.

I did not have long to wait; two days later he fell and broke his femur;

a month after his youngest was severely hurt in a car crash.

He never did well from his change of mind about our deal,

and there’s a road near a lake I cannot travel down.