The fortune cookie says: the spotlight
will cradle you like a surrogate mother. Lord,
swaddle me with a blanket dipped in smallpox
so I can feel indigenous sin,
so I can open my mouth and bite
into the snake's Adam's apple. All this talk
of destiny, but what I want to know is
how it felt for Abe Lincoln
to be six years-old, dumping out
a jar of pennies on the log-cabin floor.
Did he notice anything familiar
about the bearded man staring back at him?
Do we only recognize our fate
when it grabs us by the collar
like a train conductor and shakes us awake
on the 7:45 White Plains Local, saying sir, 
this is your stop. This really is your stop.
How many of us ignore fate's hand
brushing our cheeks and tumble
back into slumber? One side of a coin says:
you will do great things in your lifetime. 
The other side reads: you will rain shame 
upon your family. I flip the coin in the air,
as if only one of them can be true.