April 20, 2005
$5
by Seth Madej
Just off the corner
I glance between the glass doors
at the bored fortuneteller’s children
dressed up like Tarot
scaling a violent chair.
They stop and stare out at me
indistinct on the other side I imagine
their mother divining languid in back
behind a beaded curtain and
the roach of a candle smoking.
I want to sit there in that room with her
for one moment
it seems worth any price
to see past my lenses
to be surrounded by the certain future
to know if you’ll be there
our days together alight in the air around me.
But I can’t afford the bit I’d leave behind
siphoned from my unbelieving self
like the blood that flows back into a syringe
clouding the quickening dose.
Seth Madej is a member of The New Yinzer's editorial board. Sometimes he writes jokes.
