Oracle

^{for Gloria Foster}

Neo and Morpheus are looking for you
in between the in between.
You sit like any wise woman, sister in your kitchen.

Forget the walnut wood table, platter of cookies 
against a corner wall like some kind of altar
where all truth is dispensed.

No time to play with cowrie shells, tea leaves, coins,
objects of performance; no time for ritual either.

You stand cooking much of nothing, offering 
neither tea nor directions to the way.

What light can you shine into brilliance of an overly lit sky?

Just cookies.  
You offer fresh from the oven, warmed cookies.

It comes down to an ordinary woman, 
in a Marshall’s running suit
gently opening a doorway to the extraordinary.

What Neo wants to know, 
you have rightly already forgotten.
You tell him “Nothing is preordained.”  

Copyright © 2024 by Jacqueline Johnson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 7, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast 

  

“‘Oracle’ is part of the ‘Golden Lady’ manuscript that is currently in progress. I have developed a series of oracle poems that explore moments in the lives of women who are considered ‘sighted,’ clairvoyant, and visionaries from many different traditions. The poem is a bit of camp with the theme of The Matrix—the on-going fight of Man versus Virtual Reality. Does the Oracle, who is an elder, really help Neo or expect him to find his own way? The actress Gloria Foster gives her last performance in The Matrix.”
—Jacqueline Johnson