Nicholas Christopher(b. 1951)
The Palm Reader
In her storefront living room—
overstuffed couch, oversized TV, a bowl of mints
on the Plexiglas coffee table—
she watches Edge of Night1 and files her nails.
The paraphernalia pertaining to her trade
crowd a shelf beneath the large green hand
painted onto the window: a Tarot deck,
coins and obelisks, a chalky bust with numbered
phrenological divisions on the skull,
Through the beaded curtain in the rear
some clues emerge as to her life:
two children trading insults,
a man calling out, "Eggs!
as a frying pan clatters into a sink,
a dog running by with a wig in his mouth.
She herself is plump, heavily made up,
wearing a red dress and a shawl imprinted
with the signs of the zodiac.
A gold pyramid hangs from her throat
and she has combed glittering
silver stars through her black hair.
From a plush rocker she beckons you,
at the window, to a straight-back chair
in which she will divine (according to the sign
on the door) "the roads into your future,
and helpful information from the Beyond.
Though the latter, especially, tempts
you powerfully, you decline,
and she shrugs with a rueful smile.
And because it is close to noon,
and the sidewalk is empty, as you cross
the street she closes up for lunch.
Her living room in which matters of life
and death—of human destiny laid bare—
suddenly reverts to its other function:
husband slumped on the couch clutching a beer,
children sopping bread across paper plates,
the dog sprawled under the table.
All of them watching Edge of Night now.
The fate of whose characters, which keeps
a faithful public tuning in day after day,
year after year, is presumably known
to this woman, lighting a cigarette
and surveying that room, open to all passersby
yet utterly remote, as inescapable
as the future itself, that jumps out
at her from every stranger's hand.