read my palm
the woman at the flea market reads palms between a man selling dead watches and a table of yellowed family photographs nobody wanted enough to keep
five dollars
ten if you ask about love
her own hands look exhausted veins pushing blue through the skin a cigarette trembling between two fingers like it has bad news
she takes my hand without greeting
turns it once beneath the afternoon light
the crowd moves around us slow and directionless a river forgetting where the ocean is
she says nothing for a long time
just traces the lines with her thumb frowning slightly
like my future has poor handwriting
behind her wind knocks over a box of porcelain birds
one loses its head on the pavement
nobody reacts
finally she asks have you always been this lonely
not cruelly
not kindly either
just professionally
somewhere nearby a child starts crying and a train drags itself across the edge of town
metal screaming against metal
the woman keeps staring at my palm as if she expected another ending
as if somewhere in those pale fractures there should have been evidence of a life that wanted me back.