Vox Populi
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Laure-Anne Bosselaar: The Rat Trinity
That rat’s too smart to come to the crumbs
I sowed by the park bench. He has
the patience of true hunger —
he’ll wait me out with the same tenacity
I had as a child, hungry to grow strong
enough to escape the nunnery
without being caught. I loved the rats
of Bruges I watched from the dorm window,
how they slunk out
the courtyard sewer grill, slid along walls,
slipped down the cellar steps like whispers,
and vanished into gray.
I loved three in particular. Christened them
the Trinity: the Father was slick, sullen,
the Daughter, tense but lissome,
always kept her eyes lowered, and the fat-
bellied one, the Holy Ghost, maker
of miracles, was the Mother.
I imagined they came from Antwerp,
from the port’s stinking sewage by the Cod
Wharf, last quay before the wild, eager sea.
And there were times, when the nuns’
beatings seared my skin with oil hues
on the river Scheldt,
and I squeezed my thumbs in my fists
through long convent nights, there were times
I prayed to the Rat Trinity.
To show me the way out, through Bruges
sewers and cobbled streets, then underground
to Ghent, out again through velvet wheat fields
near Antwerp, and hasten to my parents’ house
where Mother wore silk and Father blew
smoke halos in the air.
I prayed the rats to bring me back to the young
whispers of their bed and into Mother’s fat,
white belly. To crown them with the trinity
they had hungered for: a Father, Mother, and from
their union not I, but unscorned and blessed:
one divine being — a son.
Copyright 2023 Laure-Anne Bosselaar. An earlier version of this poem was published in Small Gods of Grief by Laure-Anne Bosselaar (BOA, 2001).
Laure-Anne Bosselaar is a Belgian-American poet, translator, professor, and former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. She is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently, These Many Rooms (Four Way Books, 2019).
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How many times I’ve read this poem and come to understand how keenly it has become so important to my sense of poetry’s power to our inner world. Of my life-long readings it has become a classic, and keeps in my thoughts with other such things I will remember and cherish the rest of my life, and carry (if things work that way) with me to the stars.
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A beautiful description of a great poem. Thank you, Sean.
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How fortunate I am to read this poem and all your others, sharing the same city where we live, and able to hear you read such remarkable and searing poems as these. Bless those rats, and especially you.
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Thanks, Perie. I feel fortunate to have Laure-Anne among us as well.
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Dear Perie! thank you — and thank you for YOUR poems!
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Happy, Happy Birthday, dear Laure-Anne! Your poem is beyond description—truly. So moving & heartbreaking! That young speaker shows such resilience! ❤️
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Thank you, dear Ellen!
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Such a powerful, beautiful, poem! But, of course, the source is just as astonishing!! Happy Birthday to Laure-Anne, who makes the world a better place!! I’m so grateful for her, her poetry and for you publishing this.
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A smiling thank you to you, dear (and talented!) Clayton!
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Thanks, Clayton. VP exists for readers like you!
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Love the language of this poem…
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Yes, Laure-Anne is able to do so much with so few words.
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Oh my, what an astonishing poem! And what a blessing to have this divine poet among us 💖
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Yes, Laure-Anne is a blessing among us.
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So kind of you, Lisa, thank you!
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What a powerful poem! (And did you know it was Laure-Anne’s birthday last Friday?) So happy she was born to this world, and even more so as a girl! And, yes, I agree that it would be wonderful to hear her read this one aloud!
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Yes, she is a blessing for all of us.
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Michael, thank you for publishing this piece–fantastic. Laure-Anne is a jewel among us.
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Indeed she is a jewel among us!
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Thank you so very much — blushingly, yours! L.A.
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How truly kind, thank you!
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Oh, lucky us, Michael, for the gift of your publishing this wide & deep piece.
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Thanks, Jerry.
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This is why I check Vox Populi every morning. Thank you
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Thank you most warmly, Barbara!
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Devastating, colossally beautiful poem, Laure-Anne. Vivid, complicated, and weird in the best ways and all at the same time (which is the best way).
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Yes!
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Why… thank you, thank you, and thank you again!
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Powerful poem Laure-Anne. I could feel those rats and their hunger becoming the speaker’s hunger. So glad she escaped!
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Thanks, Deborah!
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How we carry those early griefs with us always. So beautiful.
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I agree. A beautiful poem. Laure-Anne is not just gifted. She is a gift.
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As I read this, I hear Laure-Anne’s voice reading it aloud, feel such gratitude for her voice, her poetry, who she is and what she gives to our battered world. Thank you.
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Oh yes, Laure-Anne is a gifted poet and a wonderful presence. I feel grateful to have her as part of our community of poets and lovers of poetry.
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I love this poem for its pathos and originality. The three rats are personified and deified. They represent an imaginary escape for the abused child, as well as an alternative to, almost a parody of, the religion of the nuns.
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Now i wish to hear it spoken it and she is so great and I know what would be in store.
Thankyou for starting my week this way, Today we commence the planting season, 225 Acres of ryegrass, mustards and turnips to plant, quick as we can get to it—quicker, let us hope, than winter can arrive.
Best to the blessed birthday girl.
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Sean, you are the real deal, bringing us back to our roots in the soil. Thank you!
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Thank you so happily much, dear Sean!
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