A Magazine of Many Arts

Jenny Blackford  

Every night, the hotel
on the fracture zone
hosts a cleansing ritual
with wine and music.
 
Guests assume it's a mere
commercial ploy,
forgetting all they knew
of ceremony, old

and new. Deluded fools,
they gulp free wine
and laugh. Staff crack jokes
even when guests fail to tip.

No one wonders why.
Still, the ritual seems to work.
Nightmares here
aren't so much worse

than elsewhere.
But even while musicians 
magic distracting sounds
(don’t look at the weird lump

there under the carpet!)
even while Buddha’s
brass head gazes down
with that archaic smile

(what is he thinking?)
the mound beneath the rug
persists baleful,
arcane.