Sunday's Whirligig

 ' 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