reading my future in the entrails of sausages and eggs

my Las Vegas fortune has baby Elvis
in the bottom of my morning cup
telling me in his squeaky southern voice
that the guy across the breakfast table
who won 300 dollars in an all night run
of craps tables and blondes
isn't going to make it
on two legs and coherent
past mid-afternoon

that it doesn't matter if I put my head
on the gray woolen shoulders of Japanese businessmen
I still won't catch the birds of a different tongue
that fly out of their mouths

and the voice
of the temporary god of the loudspeaker
is speaking Chinese
like the dice-headed dogs in my dreams

LeeAnn Heringer