You have a long life line,
said the palmist.  I know,
I replied.  I’m already old. 

You have a symbol of great power
there too, she said. I know that
too, I said.  Tell me something
I don’t know.

Your hands
are empty, she said.  They were full
and now they are open
and waiting for the next gift
to fall into them.

That was news to me
who had never felt anything,
ever, of any weight or substance
in there.

Did you not feel my hands in yours,
warm, soft, and ready, she asked?
And I had not.

Ach, she said,
What is one
to do with someone like you
who asks for his fortune
to be revealed
when he cannot feel the one
that is already there?

An ancient gentleman
in a cap
sat outside the cafe
and said to me, out of the blue,
in what I suspect
was an Albanian accent:

“Best friend. Fifty years,”

and held up a burning handrolled cigarette.

“I no speak English much.
I no speak without at all,
best friend, tobacco,
fifty years…”

And he laughed through brown peg teeth.

I could see what he meant.
Hell, we were talking, weren’t we?
And we hadn’t been.  Not till then,
and here he was being perfectly clear —
two friends laughing, perfectly clear, two of us
smoking together, holding our cigarettes
like talking sticks, taking turns
agreeing on friendship and sociability,
bridging gaps and silence
within a cloud of friendly, acrid smoke.