Maria,
it’s not in the cards
or the Ouija Board.
It’s not in the fortune cookies
either.  There’s not going to be
a revelation in the shapes of smoke
rising from the bowl full of sage on fire.
Nothing is going to give you the numbers.

Maria asks me if I am psychic,
that I know this so certainly.
No, I say.  No.  I’m just one of those guys
around whom the energy drains.
One of those guys who cools a room.
One of those guys who knows better
than to carry a mirror, or to keep walking
when the black cat appears ahead on the sidewalk.

She brightens up, all at once:

Ah, she says, I am Maria
around whom men like you become
so confident that luck awakens
and so I am sure of what will happen!

There is this weird gladiator scent
in the bar all of a sudden

as she bounces out to buy a ticket
next door at the bodega.  I pat my coat
for cigarettes — might have to mosey over there
myself soon.  Pockets feel a little
light.