Paula Turcotte
Bernadette of Lourdes Reads her Wikipedia Page, Asks Rhetorical Questions
Listen,
I was fourteen.
Have you ever met a fourteen-year-old?
Les arbres cachent la forêt.
Show me a grotto and I’ll show you
some girls looking for trouble.
Who needs plausible deniability
when you have the Immaculate Conception?
I know what they said: elle en fait
tout en fromage. But wouldn’t you?
When I kissed the flames,
my waxed lips would not burn.
I see they’ve left out the death wishes
(my own & everyone else’s).
Imagine: your lungs grow claws
and decide they want out.
Bernadette proclaimed that “all this is good for Heaven!”[This quote needs a citation]
They’ve gotten it wrong. I screamed it,
as my body betrayed me.
If Heaven is good, why all this?
Paula Turcotte lives in Moh'kins'stis/Calgary. She is the author of the chapbook Permutations (Baseline Press, July 2024). Her poems have been shortlisted for The Malahat Review's Far Horizons Poetry Prize and longlisted in ROOM's Poetry Contest. You can find her recent work in Canthius, PRISM international, and elsewhere.