Fortunate Cookie
for Kelsha Roberts

i.
psychic gifts sufficient to know
she was 18 five years ago

though she said a week or so ago
that she is 18,
accepted it then

are you 18 still, I asked, a week later
and she laughed
and said, yes

and I said, but that was 5 years ago
it turned out to be so

ii.
wanted to a say her name
know it would have been
music to hear, music to her ear

combed my note book,
the pages of it, back and forth
before I ordered my box of rice
and after

without it turning up
needed to have placed it in my head
I told myself, rather than on a page
must do that now

need to have it, whenever I, in need,
reach for it

what a lovely name it is
one of a kind

her name as well as
the woman she is


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
5:39 p.m. 19.02.10