Fortune-telling

Fortune tellers (the real ones at least)
need no crystal balls or carded tricks.
Your fortune gravely depends
on your meeting and really,
the payment they receive.

The telling begins the moment
they are requested; by whom, what for,
and how much you are paying.

If sufficient, they send out their spies,
spiders, cockroaches, and sometimes mosquitoes,
if they require a sample of blood and genes.
And if you skimp, so do they, fairly.

Armed with history and lineage
and other open, erm... privacies,
their spiders weave a web to catch,
not your future fortunes, but
your current destiny.

Once complete, they are ready to meet
you, so be prepared.
Your dress and bearing speak immeasurably,
of your propensity to pay, among other things.
Especially when you sit, like prey
in a web of their making.

Before you even ask your fortune,
they may already have seen your future.
What they are deciding, when they stare
at crystal balls or the veins in your hands,
is whether they should try to change it.
(especially if it is not a good one)

If you are lucky, they'll tell you vague nothings
which could mean anything to anybody. No point
changing your good fate accidentally.

If you are suay, they will hint,
they will warn, they will squint. No harm
facing your bad luck warily.

Especially when they make prophecies,
you must be warned. They are actively
shaping your destiny to their whims.
(hence the reason to be generous)

So even if you go home with misgivings,
and say it's all balderdash and bricks.
Their words weigh heavily already
on your subconscious scales of fate.
Either you believe in their powers
and reap their ends and effects
or ignore them and waste your measly fee.

For they've been taught, they've been told
by the fortune-tellers of old,
that the fee they receive is well
proportional to the faith they receive,
and thus the power they will hold
over what fortunes may be told.