The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 1/11/09

[BlueIris]

"Lines"

On our first date, instead of holding my hand, my future husband looked
at my palm:  Here's your fame line     your heart line     the lucky M
he said you were in danger but you are coming out of it now.
He said it like he meant it, the way the old women in the Philippines
had taught him.  Now make a fist     these two little lines under your pinky
these are the two kids you'll have.
                                                        My sister keeps waiting
for her third baby.  She has three lines.  Three kids, that's what the palm reader
at Rocky Point told her.  You'll get married next year
and you'll have three beautiful daughters.  My sister laughed and said
I'll get a second opinion because she was just a junior in high school
and sure she was going to college.
                                                        On our first date my future-husband traced
the lines on my palm with his finger and I closed my hand around his
because it tickled.  If the pad near your thumb is fleshy, he said,
it means you're very passionate.  His own palms were chubby and pink,
his brown fingers tapered and elegant.  He wore a silver and turquoise ring.
He said, You'll get married only once
                                                              but later they'll be an affair.
Now that we're married, he can't find that wrinkle of infidelity.
Our palms change, he tells me, especially our right palms
that mutate through our behavior.  He examines the bunch of tiny xs
that look like windshield frost, the wishbones, the spider webs,
the triangle dragon teeth.
                                          My sister will most likely have that third baby.
My husband sees those three lines though my sister groans,
Two are enough.  Her oldest is already fourteen, and my sister
is finally able to start taking classes at the community college.
My husband says to make everyone feel better:  I was only kidding
I don't really know that much about predictions.
                                                                           That night we all go
to Rocky Point which isn't as fun as it used to be, which is going bankrupt,
my sister says, like everything else in Rhode Island.  The rollercoaster
is broken down, the cars off the tracks, lying on their sides
like cows.  And hanging from the booths' roofs, giant Tweety Birds and Pink Panthers,
the cuddly neon elusive ones that hardly anyone ever wins.

--Denise Duhamel

[Celebration]

1. I enjoyed this

I wish I could read palms, and..........whatever happened to all the roller coasters that could be found in most cities? There's been too much consolidation in amusement parks.......not everyone can (geographically) go to a Six Flags or Disneyworld.