by Christine Baerbock

There’s a woman who prays, lips on knuckles, for her children, her husband. She does it in the shower. In bed, quilt pulled over her head. They can’t know.

On knees in the laundry room, she begs.

There’s no grace at the dinner table or in their hearts.

The sheriff is at her door.

That bad corner on Timber Lake Road.

No survivors.

The sheriff, her hips up against the wall.

Lips scalded.

The way she likes it.

The power of prayer, she thinks.

Christine Baerbock resides in Wisconsin. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Literary Magazine, Peninsula Pulse, Page & Spine, (b)oink, DASH, Bending Genres, Spelk, placed in the Hal Grutzmacher Writer Contest, and included in several anthologies.