Coffee
Came here for the peace and the price,
visited more than once or twice:
coffee’s cheap, tabled with a smile,
wondering if they’re real or servile
or something else entirely - after all,
we’re aware they’re paid a pittance;
dripped cream swirls in toffee whirls,
like sweet but sticky thoughts unfurl.
As for quiet – well - none to be had,
you’re getting old, Grandad, past it,
and noise pollution of conditioned air,
piped music, kids’ shrieks of unfair
in Arabic, forbade something sweet;
sets off alarms by malicious security.
Your looks across green plastic tables
betray something, nothing, raise fables,
sketch hexaflexagons of hidden fears
toll the bells of tinnitus in your ears,
for which you know no cure exists
a persistent pitch of splitting trysts,
a guilt that shadows all you’ve kept
like dust beneath bright carpets swept.
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