DANIEL ARIAS GOMEZ, "FORTUNE COOKIE" (ISSUE 14)

FORTUNE COOKIE

You pick up the cookie and crack
it open. You spread the paper with your fingers
and read—Happiness begins
when you face life with a wink and a smile.
You snort and throw it away. And you wish
that just once you’d get a shitty fortune.
You wish the cookie would say that your father
will spend the next ten months in the hospital
with a plastic shunt sticking out of his skull
to drain fluid from his swollen brain
until he finally dies—you wish it’d say
that by the end, your father won’t even recognize
you, that he’ll be rambling about chickens
and horses, believing that he’s still in his ranch
in Mexico, that he’ll say he likes the pozole
when he’s eating a tuna sandwich you bought
for him in the cafeteria—you wish it’d say
that in his last moments of lucidity he will look
you straight in the eye, and he will tell you he’s sorry
for having been such a horrible father,
that you’ll answer that it’s okay, that you forgive
him—you wish the cookie would say
that when your father finally dies, it’ll hurt
more than anything has ever hurt
in your life, but that every year after his
death you’ll buy one of those cloying tres leches
cakes that he loved so much, and as you eat
it next to his ashes you’ll remember his calloused
hands cutting up the beef for the pozole
that he used to cook on Sundays after church,
and you’ll smile.

ABOUT THE POET

Daniel E. Arias-Gomez was born and raised in Guadalajara. He is currently a poetry student in the MFA program at CSU Fresno.

ABOUT THE SOUND OF SUGAR

We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our seven issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.