Palm Reader

Unironed,
I noticed that straight off,
and the smell of single meals
musked and damp as an unmade bed
and a solitary swallow, faded to denim,
lost below the cuff

and the mark where the ring had been
and the unhealed scars of his last attempt

so I read him a reunion
and I palm the silver like a bribe

my whole life
spent
reading between the lines.