Ross White
You are Forever a Visitor in Your Own Home
for Heidi
Every fortune cookie I crack open
yields a little house for us to live in:
riches, travel, strangers with important messages.
We don’t get the same thrill from books,
all promise on the dust jacket but never over
fast enough. We stopped reading before
the honeymoon on Menorca. A man there,
in the sandal store, has never forgotten your smile.
I wonder if he thought he was promised you.
A psychic told me I would die at fifty-two
of heart trouble. All these other troubles
aren’t fatal. I’ve lived so many places
without ever leaving the house
because all the undiscovered countries
are baked, plastic-wrapped, shipped
across the country we know, boxed,
and delivered with our beef and broccoli.
I’m prone to reckless fits of believing
in you. This last one has lasted years.
We still have boxes in the guest room full
of books we read when we were single;
we no longer need them, we’ll never read them
the same, we might enjoy them more now
but aren’t willing to find out.
You still have an ex-boyfriend in China
who never shipped the clothes
you wouldn’t wear in the States, anyhow,
but you’d like the opportunity to show me
before they go to Goodwill. Absence
is the only malice some people have left
to give. But I will be gone in nineteen years
and you can blame the psychic for that
if you don’t blame me for believing it.
I promise I meant no harm.
I hope you’ll travel to Menorca
to see if anyone else got the fortune I got today:
Soon, a visitor will delight you.
Oh, how you delight me.
A History of Deaths in Our New Colony, Complete to 1656
Duelist, fought with pitchfork: 1
Duelist, fought with frying pan: 1
Duelist, lovesick upon a stray-flung jug: 1
Others crossed in love: 9
Rascals caught thieving, hanged: 3
Rascals presumed thieving, hanged: 3
Ruffians caught thieving, hanged: 2
Ruffians presumed thieving, hanged: 5
Old age: nary a death
Frightful cold in church: 8
Drowned on suspicion of witchcraft: 2
Bewitched: 6
Born with golden caul, choked: 1
Afrighted by the devil-child: 3
Lured to the wood by faeries: 2
A great sneeze: 3