the fortune teller's kind of truth
& attempts to pray ourselves into gods

it's 10pm on a tuesday & 
the red neon
sign above the fortune teller's 
office is angry & OPEN &
hungry for confusion--
i knock as if it's a the door
to a home-- enter in me
sage & windowsill
crystals-- 
obsisian to swallow
your apprehension-- 
this is a dwelling
of fear--this is where  hope
is a type of breath--
humans have mastered so 
many arts but are for the most
part too impatient for
divination-- when i was
younger i believed in God-born
miracle-- i found solace 
in the prayer-answered happenstances 
of snow days & bicycle tires--
a prayer is a prayer is a prayer
is a prayer
is a tiny unresolved manner of
dreaming we invented 
out of our perpetual desire
to make ourselves 
into god-- the fortune teller 
is always your grandmother 
& your lover & your best
friend you didn't meant to 
fall in love with--
she is somehow younger & older
than you want to be--
she calls wrinkles 
of your pillow case out
from your palms-- 
who was the first human to kneel
& design the idea of a prayer--
empty in their throat--
the echo of unresolved
postage-- in sunday  
school i asked if i could pray
for my mother's friend &
if he would be healed of 
lukemia & my teacher was eager
& told i should pray harder
& that god would do his best--
i prayed my thumbs into 
cups & the man died two
months later--
when i pray for people they
die & a year ago when 
my father was in a coma--
i swore to myself to not
pray for anything-- i uprooted
dandelions-- i burned my forearms
but i would not make the mistake
to think myself into a god  &
my father is still alive--
so live harder live harder--
in the rage of the word
i believe firmly only
in language--
she tells me i am a page of wands--
but i knew that--
i always knew that--  
she always finds the lovers in my spread-- 
they dance on the purple
table clothe as elk locking antlers--
she asks why the devil's card
is so  inescapable for me
& i tell her there are parts of
our pasts that no tarot card
can unforetell--
you cannot unread the creases of
my palms dug in dried blood august
-- she traces the lines
of my hands like drought rivers--
& tells me to walk slower
if i should meet the hang man or
a death on  the white horse
we used to trust--
she kisses the backs 
of my hands like the forehead 
of the big red bible
on the podium at church--
i do not worship screaming red 
neon signs preaching 
OPEN but i believe in
the kind of lies a fortune-teller
speaks in-- the kind that become
a truth the instant they
connect with air--
she lives in the foreground
of her decks of tarot cards--
i feel her leaving foot prints 
in the parched earth of my hands--
oh the page of wands is 
a young man,
faithful, a lover,
he is in the act of proclamation--
his tiding are strange--
i pay the fortune teller
a 20$
just to listen to a moment 
of uninhibited- unprayed-for 
truth-- 
the page in reserve 
is here to bring bad news--
a signal of indecision--
but who then--
is not a page of wands?