"Reading Lines" by Mariah Bosch

A man in a powder blue suit

offered to tell me my future

on Olive Avenue. When I tried

to say no, he said Baby, please,

in a way that told me that he

might know something that

I didn’t, so I held out my palm.

I used to hold out the same palm

on the playground for other girls

to read. They would tell me that

I was destined to have five kids

and a loving husband. Maybe a

mini van. They told me my future

with such certainty that it was

difficult not to see some truth,

some sincerity, some genuine

desire to wish a happy future

upon each other. So I believed them.

The man on Olive said he could see

Los Angeles and its sprawl. He

could see me there, too, but he

wouldn’t tell me what I was doing

without another five dollars.

I looked happy, though, he said.

Happy in Los Angeles and

laughing in the sun. There,

in Fresno, I sought to find

an intersection of these futures.

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Mariah Bosch called us from Fresno, CA.

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