Fortune

I bend my head
And words disperse
            Like dandelion seeds
Nature drives this force
            And my love for so many things
            And my love for so many things
It used to be that one ounce
               One ounce of our world
Could inspire the magic in my hands
                  I would cradle my thoughts
                  As I cradled the ritual of writing
It used to be that a momentary flicker
         Of a candle
               here
Was enough
            That was then

A magic 8 ball sits atop my desk today
Scratches fleck the surface
                  I search the ultraviolet ink for wishes
“You need grounding,” I once was told
I thought of this as I fingered an amber ring in a witchy shop
                  It was too expensive
                  It sits on my finger now
                  Heavy with grounding

But I am better now
There is an impermanence to the air
                  I could aspire to
Amber traps the particles of this world like miniature artifacts
But me, see, I never aim to trap:
                  Finding is my desire

Kortney Sebben is a writer and teacher residing in Columbia, Missouri. Her poetry has recently won her Honorable Mention at the School of Literature, Language, and Cultures Conference in 2021, sponsored by the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She has an essay set for publication with UNK’s Graduate Review entitled “Witness, Justice, and the Silent Confessional.” She is currently working on a poetry manuscript.