The Palmist rewrite 1

The Palmist rewrite 1

I will die soon. In a car wreck on the way home.
I scream into the palmist's face
whose eyes are lined in blue and wrinkles.
She traces the lines in my hands
with her fingers as if I am a new bestseller.
A hardback. Crisp spine. The smell of a press.

Needless to say, I didn’t die,
but the palmist did. A week later.
I read about it in the paper.
Palmist Dies in Hands.
Scanning the lines of a man
she’d never met before,
she dropped her head into his palms
after tracing a deep headline
and letting him know
he was creative and rather astute.

I didn’t attend the funeral
because I wasn’t too happy
with the news she'd given me.
These lines are short and shallow.
Your palm is a broken roadmap
where there are only dead ends.