New Lines for Fortune Cookies
By James Masao Mitsui

      - after Frank O'Hara

You have been smiling across the table
at your date with a sesame seed stuck in your teeth.

You will gain sophistication, become accepted by
Reader’s Digest, and retire in Puyallup.

In your next life you will be a teacher
and no one will

EVER

call you by your first name.

After your next vacation you will come home
and discover that your neighbors have redecorated
in the style of Iowa trailer court.

If you feel like you’re getting old,
secretly
plant zucchini in your neighbor’s flowerbeds.

Avoid people who iron their sheets
or roll their socks & underwear.

Painting
and poetry
and music
will show us where we should
be going, not the senate or tv news.

The next thermos bottle you see will actually
be a listening device made in Korea.

All the people in this restaurant
are glad that