Tell – Gallery of Charles

The lawyer’s chips click differently when he bluffs—
not the confident ceramic hymn of winning hands
but a hollow rattle, like dice already cast.

A lifetime behind the deck, she knows the table’s percussion:
how fear rasps like fingernails on felt,
how true pocket pairs make chips sing like crystal.

2-7 off-suit. Still, he raises—
breath snagged on the second syllable of “thousand.”

There it is:
the tell that cost him his wedding ring last year,
will cost him his watch tonight.

She deals the river, neutral as a priest,
hearing what she shouldn’t.

Started young—Atlantic City,
back when silver dollars still rang against wood.

Old Stavros used to say:
“Don’t watch the eyes—everyone watches eyes.
Listen to their money.”

So she learned the grammar of greed,
the syntax of panic,
how hope holds its breath too long.

Now she can’t unhear it:
the barista’s pitch rising when the till’s off,
her daughter’s laugh going sharp before a lie.

This gift that bought her a house, cost her a home—
knowing everyone’s worst music.

The lawyer folds.
Chips retreat, scraping their small defeat.

New player takes the seat—
young, stacking blacks and greens into perfect towers.

First hand: she hears the almost-silent tap
of his thumb on felt, counting cards he thinks no one can hear.

She shuffles, cuts, deals into the old rhythm—
the only honest conversation at the table:
cards falling like rain on drought.