JAL NICHOLL
Poetry—'Frieze'
      

Your old shoes have nothing to say
their tongues in hollow heads – but you decided
to give them one more day

in the basement where pages
uncut a century and longer
keep silent. Then go and crowd

abreast with the others
their eyes facing the same way
as your toes, in their own sweat and darkness

straining to see the show. Where then
but to the fortune-teller
whose uncanny knowledge amazes you

when she invokes your fears by name;
– not that her predictions ever
come true, but her dictum

that one who is damned on earth has eternal life
is certain, and you take it home.