In her own words...


"Fortune Cookies"

2001


Blackwidow and bluedaughter will precede a bronze fortune. Wait
     ninety-one dawns.

Try aulic apples and eco-similes when up a tree. On the next moon’s
     round you will hear a new note.

A fixed star burns the edges of frayed identity. Look underground for
     knockout denouement.

Swarming doubt surrounds your final forfeit. Your aura is now in orbit.
     Wear its disguise.

Learn the Erynnian language of thorns. Make a pact with chaos. From
     then on you won't care.

The faces in the mirror have learned to talk. If you listen they will slash
     your past, ignite your future.

In ten days your eyes will see a glaive. Take it as a sign of promise. Your
     beauty will explode.

Mix wine with semen and ectoplasm. Throw it out. You shall be richly
     rewarded.

Wild rapture spins over your personal landscape. Do not hold your
     breath in the fire. This sign is bliss.

Entrance to Hell demands grit. After nine days in the ashes you will
     be walking on air.

Go mad and you will not become truly insane. Tomorrow you will be
     chosen.

 

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About this work


“Fortune Cookies” was first published in Boston Review, Vol. 26, no. 6 (December 2001/January 2002), p. 13.  It is also included in Dorothea Tanning's book, A Table of Content: Poems, New York: Graywolf Press, 2004, p. 19, and may not be reprinted without the publisher's permission.