Wheel of Fortune

L. E. Francis

 

You can’t out-maneuver true north.
Direction upon direction becomes
stagnation & you cannot claim
movement when you end up in
the same place — love, you’re shaking,

you’re pressing your body into the wind
& screaming demands to the stars that led
you astray & I can’t help — as the priestess
mellows at the bottom of the deck, hear the
hard clink of sunstone meeting the windowpane.

I don’t think you can meditate yourself out
of this place with the mocking yellow walls
& the bed that tied knots in your spine,
know the directions & count the stars
& say your affirmations until the silver

mountains catch the sun & still — this is
hell. Tear out all your wiring & sing
all your curses. Can’t blame the hardware,
the software done glitched when you dreamed
these things — dreamed his face lit

by the burn of your stars & imagined
it was you he was looking at.

 

 

 

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L.E. Francis is a multiple medium procrastinator living among the Washington Cascades. Her poetry has appeared in Mookychick, Nightingale & Sparrow, Marías at Sampaguitas, and Moonchild Magazine. Find her online at nocturnical.com.