Week #7—Sign Inventory

Palm Reader Sees Long Love

by Leigh Ann Couch

You will reach the end of what

he will give. You’ll circle the barbed wire

(a blind woman inside it),

around it you’ll drive the borders

obsessively, cut into the quick,

hold your breath, wait in the dark

room, try to be the cleanest

pane of glass against it.

You’ll walk nights across no-numbered

highways crisscrossing themselves,

sine and cosine, you’ll squint and dash

for strips of green midriff between

asphalt—get to the other side.

You’ll wander through towns between counties

where people whisper see the crows

hammering inside her chest. You reach

the end of what he will give and hold

the markers in your arms like kindling.

Opening the book of gibberish to begin

again through wet fields of sawgrass

you set out for the end of what

he will take, hoping it takes forever.

Confessional with thrown voice of speaker through palm reader.

Tone is ironically prophetic and recounting (looks forward and backward like a palm reader). Short phrases of lines 5, 6, & 11 indicate an urgency or emphasis.

Enjambment with no rhyme scheme.

Some engagement of the absurd:  “try to be the cleanest pane of glass” and “green midriff between asphalt”

Simile: “markers in your arms like kindling”

Metaphoric language gives the poem a lot of ambiguity about what it really implies.

Title confers meaning to the poem

Geometric references of “circle,” criss-crossing,” “sine and cosine,” and “side.”

Narrative style includes ‘list’ of occurences.