Our Oldest Alphabet

 

If it’s true that flesh is clay
and the history of our lives
is written in the lines on our faces
—then this must be our oldest alphabet,
a proto-cuneiform, a language that admits no lies.

And on our palms, the gypsies say
the future’s written—but in a different alphabet
a shifting tongue of ifs and maybes,
of unformed possibilities.

Of all these lines, the bottom:
the past is written on your body
it made you what you are
the future is written on your hands
you make it what you will.

--image courtesy of Thrilling Wonder