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The Fortune Teller

Posted by MistakenMagic on September 20, 2008 - 20:50
from the ABC set Birds, Bees and Butteflies

In the playground
We gathered around the fortune teller
With his flapping paper mouth,
Pinched between anxious fingers.
Pick a colour. Red.
Icy shadows stretch behind closed doors
And the name tag nips your chest
So you can barely breathe.
Your only comfort is a razor blade
Grinning from the second drawer
With his delicious, melting mouth.
But still the bible in the third drawer
Reminds you that God is benevolent.
Pick a number. Three.
Counting under your breath. One.
You step onto the chair in the centre
Of the kitchen. For once
You are the focus of everyone’s attention.
The walls lean in to watch intently.
Two. You fasten the love knot
Around your neck. One motto;
Slip in, slip away.
You prepare for the release
Like that time, cliff diving in New Zealand;
The sea was an azure scarf below
And the gulls were so white
It was as if they were folded from paper.
Three. You jump.
Your body swings like a pendulum,
No longer a prisoner of time.

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Comments

MistakenMagic | September 20, 2008 - 20:52

Author's Note: A fortune teller is an origami (folded paper) contraption that we played with when I was in primary school supposedly to tell each others futures. One person holds the fortune teller and asks another person to pick a colour then a number to reveal their fortune.

Silver Spun Sand | September 21, 2008 - 07:41

Gosh, Magic - I (we) used to play this too. I had almost forgotten about it. I remember, I was always terrible at trying to fold the paper into the quite intricate (as I remember it) lotus-flower type shape, so I left that to someone else, usually my elder sister.

A spin-chilling write, this - revealing yet another side of your many faceted writing talent.

Good stuff:-)

Tina

jennifer | September 22, 2008 - 09:31

Love this line so much:

'And the gulls were so white
It was as if they were folded from paper.'

because it is just perfect imagery, but in the 'origami' context, perfect.

We used to play at school too. I love the whole poem, because it just leaps backwards and forwards and flows...

MistakenMagic | September 23, 2008 - 16:55

Thank you for the great comments guys :) Wow, I'm amazed at the response to this poem - I was sure there was some crit coming my way, and I wasn't happy with it when I posted but now I'm seeing it in a different light!