The River Had Teeth
and a Tongue

Rachel Mallalieu

The River Had Teeth and a Tongue

Didn’t see his blue sled slide
under the fence but that day
I learned the river had teeth

and a tongue. When Mom tried
to tell me, she slipped on the word
drowned, but I’d found her journal

and already knew about the way
a boy used her brother as a life
preserver the summer of 1959.

I learned so many things that winter
as I crept around our apartment
in sock feet. My mother’s missing

molar taught me not all fathers
had soft hands. Mine did, but still
my younger sister claimed she saw

a bloody hand rising from the floor
each night. She called it the arm of Jesus,
and stayed awake but refused to pray.

I learned in the worst way that pools
could also swallow a boy, but I wailed
the name Jesus while I pumped my baby’s

Rachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. She writes poetry in her spare time. She is the author of the chapbook A History of Resurrection (Alain Buddha Press 2022). Some of her recent work is featured or forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Pembroke Magazine, Nelle, Rattle, and Sky Island Journal.