The Thief, by ​Mari-Carmen Marín

The Fortune Teller, by Adele Kindt (Belgium) 1835

The Thief 
 
The future holds secrets she wants to uncover  
as eagerly as she removes her hooded cloak  
from over her shoulders, her blemishless skin  
 
a soft-hued marble slab in a museum. Youth  
makes her heart thirsty, a thirst only a fortune  
teller may quench with the help of cards. With lines  
 
plowing her coarsened face, the old swindler seems  
to hold the key to the mystery of what is not but it will  
be. She hides behind her black hood and holds on tight 
 
to her black cat, as if darkness could help light  
come alive. Outside, the blue sky wears pink ribbons,  
its nightgown’s flirty frills. Don’t you see?  
 
It screams for all to hear. The future you hope to discover  
stands here, in front of you. Anything else is a thief. 

​Mari-Carmen Marín

Mari-Carmen Marín was born in Málaga, Spain, but moved to Houston, TX, in 2003, where she has found her second home. She is a professor of English at Lone Star College—Tomball, and enjoys dancing, drawing, reading, and writing poetry in her spare time. Writing poetry is her comfy chair in front of a fireplace on a stormy winter day. Her work has been widely published in numerous journals. Her poetry book, Swimming, Not Drowning, was published by Legacy Book Press in 2021. Her author website is www.maricarmenmarinauthor.com