'
Park Bench' by Albert Garcia.
There should be a park bench.
We’ll sit next to each other,
watching a man throw a tennis ball
to his yellow lab,
sending
and retrieving the dog
whose loyalty to task is clear
to both of them.
I’ll say something
to start,
something I’ve wanted
to say for years,
words I’ve never before
been able to put together,
and you’ll hear them perfectly,
my words like a child’s wooden blocks
you can hold in your hands,
turning them for their modest gleam.
What you say comes as a breeze
that sinks in my skin,
not warm, not cool, just
what I needed to feel and hear,
like bath water, like tea.
Then
we sit, and the dog
lopes out again to retrieve
his ball.
The man waits
for what he knows is coming,
and the breeze,
if there,
moves between us, back
and forth, silently.
park dog between sinks breeze watching
retrieve coming task something perfectly tea
sitting in the park watching
the sun sink between the two giant trees
her dog eagerly awaits another
ball to retrieve
the cool afternoon breeze
on this perfectly lovely spring day
signals it's time to return home
for tea
something she always looked forward to
and never regarded as a task
his phone call out of the blue
had been a long time coming
a small glimmer of hope
had somehow survived
now she could think of little else
