The Fortune Teller Poem by Joanne Togati

You came across this watering hole
Running from rain clouds
You were driven here

May I see your hands
I used to count these lines as a child
It would not be to tell your fortune then
But to be near

You speak like someone I remember
A boy who pushed a lemon cart on a dusty country road
He wore overalls and leather sandals with pockets full of lemons
He craved the days end

His father was a bricklayer
His mother didn't work
He fed his family by the transport of lemons

Maybe I denied him the information that he desired
That the years would eventually take him away to America
But I could feel it was not his time to know
I think if he knew any sooner that his fate was such
The aroma of Sicilian life would have ended then
And his true identity with it

Who deems I should hold such power
Over lives
I have learned from him
and will spare you

But now we are in this watering hole
and you are finally by my side
How tall each blade of grass grows

Should I divulge these mysteries between the blades of grass
And cause a different pattern to emerge
If so the winds would change us forever