Volume > Issue > Boardwalk Fortune Teller

Boardwalk Fortune Teller

A POEM

By F.P. Grady | May 1985

Borne up by priestly hands beyond the dark

The clean oblation of the harvest moon

Draws no heart to it. Here the brute is stark,

Full-rationed on the rich, barbaric tune

Of jangling carousels, cheap bawdy shows,

Horrors in waxwork, snuffling furtive lust

Along the darkened sands. Yet still he knows

Enduring hunger, and a stronger thrust:

 

This child, this frightened huddler by the fire,

This prattler in the sun, this fool who mars

The beauty he may never under­stand,

Stirred by an old, implacable desire,

Traces a destiny in the lonely stars.

And fortune on the parchment of his hand.

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