I stopped believing in harbingers,

the same way I try not to flinch

when passing on the stairs,

or hide the sidestep in my walk

for cracks on the pavement.

 

Superstition crawled inside my head

before I was old enough to name it.

Caught up between pie crusts

my great-grandmother baked,

hidden in the coils

of her apple peels.

 

Good Day Mr Magpie,

are you well? How’s the family?

 

We buried glass somewhere,

years ago,

when it broke like ice

and my mother feared

the things she’d been taught

might just come true.

 

Seven years bad luck

unless it’s buried.

Deeper now, deeper,

hide the evidence and the thought. 

 

Sometimes it’s simpler not to

see the shadows casts as signs.

Yet I still count in threes,

for these things always come in threes.

 

Crossed knives, 

tempest in a teapot,

do not stir and do not pour

these quarrelsome ideas.

 

The worst of it always comes unseen.