Nine Things About Oracles

By Elise Matthessen

By Elise Matthessen

Let me try to be clear.
The first thing is that nobody wants to know,
and yet you can’t stop asking.
The second is you all want reassurance:
be better off with a fortune cookie.
The third is that I don’t owe you anything,
you’re not what it’s about.
I see the tiles, sideways, sometimes,
tessera, tesserae, the way the pattern
plays out in fifths, the beat falling
unchangeably, a glimpse, a riposte in sixte,
and what will be set, sept, set down in stone,
the colours always ambiguous
even in the moment the threads part,
the owls crying in the october meadow
gods and time and weight, wait,
that one instant of vision, the curtain
falling, parting,
there is a whole ocean
crashing towards
that ninth wave.

15th March 2009