Mute

He sits alone and looks on as

young women at a nearby table talk.

One puts her mouth to a girlfriend’s ear

and shouts within the rock band’s throb,

a laughing message. The other shouts back.

Their faces reflect sound.

He listens like the deaf, watching

their lips without hope of sensing,

sense of hoping,

feeling the table top

jump under his elbows.

On a napkin, the work of a muse mulling

muted thoughts, stubbed cigarettes,

dead coals, the chance of speaking over.