Life Lines

A palm poem

Once a friend tried to read my palm
She held up hers to show me
That each hand has two lines
Curving their way along your flesh
Or so her palm reading book told her.
She took my hand but couldn’t read it,
The lines curved in weird ways and
There were too many
Crossing and crowding and nudging each other.
Long lines that emerge from the edge of my hand
Then end abruptly in the middle.
Small lines like little scars
That start from nowhere
And go nowhere,
Seeming with little point or purpose.
She gave my hand back in a hurry and ran off
Saying my lines were unreadable,
But I like to think that my hands
Tell of many journeys and people and ideas
All crowding together, competing for time and thought
My lines tell of places to see and things to do
Expeditions I have made and have yet to make.
My life seems fuller then the lives of those
Whose palms have only two clear lines
Cutting evenly across their hands.