The Cafe

Through the muddy haze of rough conversation
bubbling with of words like so much flotsam
upon a sea of heads in the crowded café,
I struggle to lift my head and cleanse myself
of the polluted din.

My fellow shipmates cling to their tables
as the shipwrecked cling to the broken
shards of their once proud ships.
Islands unto themselves
scattered across the room

I am above and below but not among
the surface of bobbing heads.
Seeing from afar, beneath their notice
None to speak with except the friendly barmaid
Who stops to ask, “Another?”