Sylvie

Knox wiggling out of another confession.

But who am I to demand one? Someone

who wouldn’t mind a little company

in the jail cell of her heart. Which might look

something like the Roadside Psycho’s—

sorry, Psychic’s—setup, a white cinderblock box

that was probably a church in a past life. But

instead of corny pastor jokes (God answers

knee-mails!), the letterboard reads

YOUR FATE IS KNOWN TO ME,

which is made still creepier by the peeling F

in FATE. I think it’s messed up

how much more we believe things

when they’re written down, like the act

of squeegeeing those letters up on the sign

converted an idea from nonsense

to gospel. And still, Sylvie the hypocrite,

I’m doing it now—what if the psychic

can see the long clean line of it,

every mess-up feeding into the next?

What if Miss Tara was warning me

that this fortune teller actually knows

what she’s doing? What if she looks him

dead in the eyes and says: Knox, this girl loves you,

and she kills what she loves.

If ads affect your reading experience, click here to remove ads on this page.