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.
