You told me you
were born a
minute too soon;
that although it’s but a wink
of allotted time,
it wreaks its own havoc that
the rest of us can hardly
comprehend:
Applauding before the
rondo lands its close.
Divulging the footman did it
before anyone has a clue.
Even Poirot
had scratched his head.
You sprung up from your seat
like a diable en boîte—
60 nervous seconds
before the puck had hit
the twine. The crowd around
you figured you were mad,
though you were proven right
once the siren flashed its
whirling, carmine light.
You were unerring on
everything—
solving Wheel of Fortune
before the initial letter’s ping.
Spoiling from the get-go
our charades—
while a person read their
card; cerebrated gestures.
Your mother & her doctor
tried to hold you back a bit—
envisioned your beaming visage
in the paper—first one born
in the cheer of Auld Lang Syne.
You warned us of tsunami
on the beach in Myanmar,
during a calm as still as
slumber. Made a traffic turn
just moments before a
sinkhole gobbled the ground—
sandwiched by two taxis which were
preordained to plunge.
The selling of your stocks
before the clang of the
closing bell.
We wondered on your luck,
your talismanic aura;
asked to see your clovers
or the toes of a hapless hare.
The gift of one’s good fortune
comes at the cost of
innocence. The flip
of a fractured mirror,
the slit on a child’s wrist.
The dance of an Irish
jig beneath the ladder;
a painter who will plummet
to his death.
Over by the carrots
you will wrest, a rabbit tries to
hop on one less leg; six more
like her somewhere
in your garden—
just lagging behind your
tugs by a single leap.
Andreas Gripp
March 21, 2026
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