Cafe Delfin, Gdansk

Trucks huffing outside. The swish of the swinging door to the bar. Clicking. Unintelligible language. Light wafting from the picture window inscribed Café Delfin. A moth who can’t find her way out running over and over into the clear barricade. A film projector, cord cut, now decoration- seems perfect design with the moth flitting about. I think of movies in elementary school - the dust in the projector light. Six blush brown-edged roses perched in a clear vase, beckoning romantic dreams. Two waitresses: one young, one old. The clank of a glass. Roughing of chair legs across the tiles. Electronic ambience drops from the corner speaker. A phone song rings, interrupting my reverie.

Old cranberry colored theatre seats lining the wall match my dry red, which is making me dizzy at two in the afternoon. I finish a pen off. Satisfaction. The swinging door again. Paying at the counter, an old man in a vest, greenish khakis, and a plaid shirt, all hanging loosely off him, slides his wallet in his back pocket and shuffles to the bathroom.

No English. I’m alone in my thoughts, alone at my table, alone in my worry for the moth who is resting on the window sill barricaded by glass. I want to move her, but I am scared to touch her. She rests, waiting to garner the energy to bang the glass again.