She Who Sees
A fortune teller
lives in a shambly house, of rough planks – like the one my cousin built for his young wife – a house where the road curves, arrives straight and changes direction. Fortune teller, prophet, her scope is personal. She doesn’t describe the earth’s end or promise some old man everlasting seed. She tells whether to buy a house, love again, or move to Africa. Across the road new red calves with clean white faces dot a green pasture. From the woods comes a honey-colored bear, bigger than a bull or a truck. Big, like dream bears. Cautious of her bulk she lies down by the road watches the fortune teller with her innocent eyes, a contented child with a full belly and a long sleep behind her. The fortune teller watches her, watches the images in her eyes that make tarot cards and yarrow sticks redundant. From the blink of my birth to the blink of my death – all one. She sees what she sees: the wreck on the road when Jeffrey pulled in front of a car that drunk night after the dance; the morning Carl, newly recovered from scarlet fever, climbed onto the table and ate the fermenting plums. She sees what she sees: murder and miracles, the turn in the road, sees me coming up the driveway moving in, deciding to stay. “Yes,” the fortune teller says, “you’ll be moving soon but not to Africa.” |
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