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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