Christa Fairbrother
Astragalomancy
Divination by knuckle bones is called
astragalomancy, though it needs bones
that are whole, clean, and fennel crisp to yield
futures with distinct and clear potentials.
Ones your family can brag about with
a lifted chin over the fence, or at
weddings, white and pure without arthritis.
Come one, come all, have your fortune told. Who
would pay two coppers for futures crowded
with natural disasters and fissures
in your relationships or in yourself—
holes in those bones—erosions, crevices.
They say to get married in grey, color
of your holy bones, you'll go far away.
A Pain Participation Poem
If the number one is barely any pain and the number ten is the worst pain you’ve ever experienced. How would you describe your pain today?
1.
You bent down to try and work out a fold in your sock, and one hair,
just one, got pulled out by the clipboard
with the pain scale some provider asked you to fill out
2.
The face you’re making now is probably the same as your porn face
or your mom look
or resting bitch face when some jerk told you to smile
3.
O, the shape your mouth makes when bacon grease splatters out of the pan,
burns you like trying to walk across hot summer pavement after you broke a flip flop
4.
Your arm went to sleep, and now you have a bad case of pins and needles
massaging it out doesn’t solve it any more than it does any of your other pains
5.
Meh emoji face
the middle face on the normal pain scale, sickly yellow with a straight line for a mouth
6.
You slam your fingers in the car door, and you don’t laugh when you hit your funny bone either
7.
Add embarrassment on top, like your imaginary victory lap running up the Philadelphia Art Museum steps with the Rocky Balboa theme song, arms raised overhead in triumph when you trip on the last step and roll down all that concrete to the bottom
or more likely,
you thought it’d be a good idea to use wax strips on your upper lip
8.
The shape of an eight
an infinity sign
pain and pain, a loop of pain that you can’t wish away
9.
You’ve heard labor is the most painful thing a woman can experience. This is worse,
like back labor, because your face is melting off like a clock in a Salvador Dali painting
10.
You’re unconscious with a frozen grimace after swimming with piranhas
someone else is filling out this form for you
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Christa Fairbrother, MA, has had poetry in Arc Poetry, Pleiades, and Salamander, among others. She’s been a resident with Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Bethany Arts Community. Currently, she’s Gulfport, Florida’s poet laureate and she’s been a Pushcart Prize nominee. Connect with her at www.christfairbrotherwrites.com.
