Jean Esteve
Fortunes
“Do not turn your back on yourself.”
Advice from a long-ago weighing machine
where you stood on the scale, put a penny in
and read your weight (two hundred and ten),
while a flimsy slip of paper dropped from a slot,
advice I’ve saved all these years and that
I daresay heeded,
for to ignore it would bring about such contortion
and painful skin-splitting that I prefer to tote
my back on my back as exhorted.
Yesterday I ate a Chinese cookie,
gobbled it, such a pig for sweets am I,
and almost choked on a paper fortune,
which I retrieved, damp and stained
with cookie paste, yet still legible.
I found this warning: “Face
yourself.”
I figured I’ve gotten this far, stayed complete,
why risk what I might regret?
Merriment. Merriment. Merriment.
