By the light of a lamp at the edge of a table
She studies the lines in the hands of a stranger
How deep, cut by the labor
How long, like sketches on paper

He shifts his weight like a man on a wire
leans in close like a moth to a fire
stares in her eyes as though she might save him
from some fate written in his skin

She says "Here is the line of the heart,
and here is the line of the soul,
and a line intersecting
for every true love you’ve ever known
like a river through a delta
we come back together in the sea
it’s all mapped out in the palm of your hand
like roots and branches of a tree"

he said I'm thinking about my hometown that was never home to me
im thinking about the sound of the train when it took me to the east
he said i sent her all those letters, but i guess they never found their way
because i never heard from her again, even to this day

he said the work here wasn't easy, but thinking weren't too hard
it was heavy on the shoulders, it was noisy in the yard
and i took my chances daily, i took some on the chin
and I lost a thousand bets that were never mine to win

She says "Here is the line of the heart,
and here is the line of the soul,
and a line intersecting
for every true love you’ve ever known
like a river through a delta
we come back together in the sea
it’s all mapped out in the palm of your hand
like roots and branches of a tree"

his lips are parted breathing her words taking her in like the tide
he is calloused and creased, ripe for release he is turning over inside
thinking how many years did he swallow? and how many more till he dies
and if there’s any kind of redemption in those wayward patterns she spies

some cross themselves in the morning but that was never really his style
just two cups of coffee and a cigarette and a half-eaten grin for a smile


he’d wondered if anyone ever noticed him getting older by the day
going through those motions - never had much, much to say

but on the road to work every morning he would pass that yellow house
there was a sign in the window, a crystal ball in the hands
of this woman in a headscarf and a purple polkadot blouse

the sign said “psychic” / “palms read here”
“fortune teller” / “palms read here"

She says "Here is the line of the heart,
and here is the line of the soul,
and a line intersecting
for every true love you’ve ever known
like a river through a delta
we come back together in the sea
it’s all mapped out in the palm of your hand
like roots and branches of a tree"