Fortune Telling

I don't know her story. I just believe in it,
same as an amputee's physical absences bespeak
their former limbs. Lost now
and now, decades later, she calls
to me and calls me
"Girl!"
I should keep walking; not very good
at ignoring people - hurts too much.
It's her. She's old in a way no one should ever
have to be. Intricate skin pleated at
eye corner where vision's overflow spends memory
all across the present
in mad splashes. She's staring
down; fascinated by her own wrists.
And just above her elbows,
where she's gone heavy,
a place to get lost.

Palms upturned. Just up,
up from there, light and
life-lined; map set down thick.
No space between the roads. No
arrow pointing "You Are Here"
amidst forests of bone and vein. Still
a pulse insists and rises in curious
sketch orbit; human silhouette, fixed
and held by that same spirit.

She lifts
her wrists
up and says "When I was young,
my hands were birds. Huh. To watch me move.
I've a picture here of me ... here ... somewhere.
When I was younger ... my twenties. Well
... here somewhere
... you ... looked an awful lot
like you ... never know. Perhaps I was."

Behind me, a hotel sign flashes NO VACANCY.
The words bob off her eyes. Old. Spilling back
its light. Reflecting reflect - hand's
go to fist; arms wind private; soldier
across her chest. Reflex. Were I a palm reader,
I'd have refused her anyway. She already knew
too much. Keep moving; my gaze
travels; catching, slipping up, just above
her elbows, where she's gone heavy -
a place to get lost.