palm reading: fate line

ink spreads evenly across the palm
pressing down on paper, the image forms
a net of lines, always the same.
there it is - rising firmly from the wrist
and pausing halfway up, it says
'a good beginning comes to nothing'
an empty stretch from mid to top of palm
faint lines wavering here and there
going on without purpose or direction.
I do not believe in this, I think,
and close the book.

Copyright © Kim Hodges
July 1995

"mermaids (littlest and not)"
"Reading at Powell's"
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