AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

It is evident that Christ and his cult
of veneration, that held sway
over everything from coronations
to making cups of tea is on the wane.
Just as superstitious as these Egyptian
tools for removing the brain
through the nose, or these crude Greek
figurines of Eros riding wolves and Aphrodite
spawned from shell. In the Japanese room
the tour guide talks them through
a miniature cabinet of lucky gods
and a fat, gold–plated grotesque that promised
wealth. It puts one in one's place to know
this earthenware bowl once carried water
for religious rites two–thousand years ago.
The thumbs can't have been no different
as they wet the infant's forehead.
I can smell the incense on his soft,
priestly fingers. And his voice, murmuring 
the sacred prayers over burnt sacrifices,
echoes through the museum 
like a drop of oil in a deep vase.