The Fortune Teller Knows She'll Never Marry
       

Because she wakes one morning with hands
so swollen even her father's class ring
can't be worked over the stiff knuckle.
Because weevils writhe in her canister
of rice and the dough under the cheesecloth
veil refuses to rise and she draws three times
a worn Five of Cups from the tarot deck.

So when she traces a hopeful woman's
sloping heart line, she returns her folded bill
and foretells: "You give your love too easily,
you toss it like pennies into a well.
You'll come to know no more thrilling sound
than your own heart breaking like the crest
of a wave or the clapper of a glass bell."

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Copyright © 2016 Josephine Yu All rights reserved
from Prayer Book of the Anxious
Elixir Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission