Winner

Winner

I watch their fingers on the green felt table,
some quick, and some deliberate,
picking up cards like sacred relics
to gather in a blessing from the gods
or slowly read destruction's oracle.

Their faces have no lips behind the cards
they hold like fans of the coquettish.
but still they kiss the hands of kings and queens,
critique the fashion of suits both dark and red,
mutter at numbers wrong and without pattern.