C-

Twenty faces with twenty voices

Talking in circles around me.

Papers circulate like pallid

Clots in the tributaries to the heart's sea.

Twenty strangers with but

A name or two between them.

what's stranger still is how they

clump together, wet petals without a stem.

Though the room is quite full

The atmosphere is oppressive and cold.

Willing or not they work against me

And I help them.  I am truly alone.