David J Bauman

Several of you seemed to enjoy the fortune cookie poem yesterday, thank you, and so I dug deeper for an old poem I hadn’t read in a while.

Everyone loves to add the words “in bed” to the end of their fortunes, but when my youngest was quite little we had a game of making up a phrase just before opening the cookies. We found it to be great fun, even if nobody else understood. I guess the little monkey prodigy showed a great love of playing with words even then.

Fortune Cookies

Maybe because it was late 
or just such a busy day, 
but we forgot tradition 
and left them where they lay. 

Movies and popcorn, baths 
and stories, teeth then lights. 
The oldest will fall asleep last, 
reading into the night. 

Jon is probably snoring, 
a blinking game at his side. 
"At least today wasn't boring," 
he'd said, and all of us nearly died. 

But the youngest, that would be him; 
pacing in the hall. I call him in, 
as restless as he, and ask 
if he'd have a cookie with me. 

He smiles and gives me my phrase, 
and I think a moment for his. 
I must end mine "with monkeys" 
and he "if you know what it is." 

We crack open the brittle shells 
ready for fortune and laughs. 
He giggles "Use wisely your wealth-- 
if you know what it is." 

"Be most affectionate today-- 
with monkeys," I say. So I kiss him 
and pick the chimp up swinging, 
counting my wealth and singing.

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