ELEGY WITH PSYCHIC by Maja Lukic

She will not tell me about my death.
Outside is a blue Asheville sky 

and the blue mountains one always sees— 
except here in the psychic’s small 

bone-chilled room. She says my mother 
is proud of me, and my father wants me to 

release my anger. Our access to the afterlife 
is not equal—she can see them, hear them—

mother, father, grandmother, their faces 
as if lit by candles. But I am standing 

in a doorway, yearning into a darkness 
giving nothing back. It is not warm there, 

it is not kind to me. There must be a ceremony,
she says. I could scatter ashes in the blue Adriatic. 

I could find an old cemetery. It’s clear from 
the way she speaks, it’s me who won’t let them 

rest. She sees California, she tells me I will write 
three books, and the number strikes me as low.

It sounds like my life will be as short as theirs 
or shorter—but I don’t tell her that.

Maja Lukic is a Brooklyn-based poet. She received an MFA in poetry from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, A Public Space, The Adroit Journal, Bennington Review, Image, Sixth Finch, Copper Nickel, the Slowdown podcast, and elsewhere.

23 September 2024