Amateur Palmistry

My college boyfriend told me that I had old hands.
He was a coder with delicate fingers and very few palm lines.
In comparison, my hands withered.
They were a smattering of lines and veins.

I never forgot it.

Many years later, a pianist said he liked my hands.
The way that the tendons jutted out —
Their nimble flexing,
And that complex pattern of lines.

He read my palm beneath the moonlight.
He told me the story of the vivacious life ahead of me,
of all that was to come,
and all that I had had.

It was a ploy to hold my hand,
I know,
But he pointed out a quirk of mine that I can’t unsee.
The head line and the heart line met each other.
A little path brought them close.

Somewhere, in the back of my mind,
There was a nineteen year old.
I walked my life line all the way back to my dorm room.
She was there flexing her tendons wildly with each keyboard tap.

And I wanted to tell her that that web on her palms bled
history, that it foretold her passion for imbibing life.
I wanted to shake her hand. I wanted to kiss it.

I began to clap, untethering my palm lines from my palms.
They came away into the air
And tied themselves together, forming one path
That stretched forever and ever.
It wrapped itself around me and held me snug.
There is a certain comfort in having a fate.