Jennifer Gravley
The psychic says you’re not married. Your husband sits in the chair next to you. The psychic says you are your own worst enemy. She says your enemies wish you harm. The psychic says you’re not meant for an ordinary job. You are creative. You were meant to be famous. Your timing is terrible. The psychic says you have a project languishing, covered in dust. It is about a girl. All of your projects are about girls! The psychic says the girl has special powers and travels the world. You only write about girls very much without powers, girls who sit in their living rooms. The psychic says this project is meant to be a series, a movie. But your timing is terrible. The psychic tells you therapy won’t help you. (Your therapist tells you to write at work. Maybe she will tell you to write about this world-traveling girl with special powers at work!) The psychic says your negative energy is causing you to mess up your work. The psychic is an energist. She hardly looks at your outstretched palm. The psychic says you take things out on your husband. She gestures towards him. You allow your hair to block your peripheral vision. The psychic says you are thinking about moving. You are! You should not move. You do not do well with change. She dares you to deny that you are depressed. The psychic says you are insecure. Your sensitivity about your writing is keeping you from living the life you were meant to. Where you stay in your living room in Missouri and write about a psychic girl who travels the world! The psychic says you need a deep reading. You are a text! The psychic tells you to call her from Missouri. The psychic hands you a card. You hold it against your right palm. The psychic tells you two good days and two good numbers. At the hotel, in bed, you try to remember—Tuesday and Thursday or Tuesday and Wednesday? Three and eight? It is Tuesday today. Your timing is terrible.
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Jennifer Gravley makes her way in Columbia, Missouri. She is a writer of sentences, a watcher of bad television, and a reference and instruction librarian. Her work has recently appeared in Sou’wester, The Fourth River, and New Delta Review, among others.
