Diana Raab Poet Narrative

Fortune Cookie

Sunday evening, suburban New York,
we ate at the corner Chinese restaurant,
its fish tank hypnotic, the smiling 

welcome from the Chinese woman 
caressing menus to her chest, 
who led us to the booth which stuck 

to my legs as I slid across to my 
designated spot. Dad promised 
me a fortune cookie on the way out, 

which I took from the bowl by the door. 
We ate spareribs, licked our fingers 
and laughed, trying to pick kennels of rice 

and long noodles with splintered
chopsticks. We praised the food, 
but wondered why we often left hungry

for both food and fortune, after extracting
mine from the smashed cookie, reading then
putting the crumbled paper in my pocket, 

to be found weeks later, hoping somehow 
the words would have changed 
and the little paper whispered 

truths about my own future,
rather than just giving dad the
numbers for his weekly lottery.

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