Yes, fortune-telling is stupidity
Incarnate, and its promises aren't real.
If nature has deep secrets would they be
Reserved for this glib boozer to reveal?
And yet you stay to hear her prophecy,
Part of you hoping that the cards she'll deal
Might give some hint of meaning, even glory.
Such is the human appetite for story.


She says: "I don't know what they mean.
It's somehow unlike any other spread
Of cards. Those mean misfortune and the Queen
Of Spades is death. What's unclear is - who's dead?
Unless..." Her eyes take on a mystic sheen;
She speaks two words that you'd prefer unsaid,
A name you know too well. Your thoughts all swarm....
Someone's behind you... You smell chloroform.

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