167: Handwritten Notes and Park Benches
I write the neighbor’s names
on a worn index card
and tape it to the fridge-
Alana and Neil,
Apartment 3.
I don’t want to forget.
Then I walk outside
where there are a hundred benches
facing the sun in
Riverside Park.
Each has a name-
someone lost.
Some include notes-
“Beloved Son,”
“Public school teacher,”
“Missed but not forgotten.”
I wonder who remembers them.
I wonder who finds the bench
of their beloved
and rests there for a while.
I wonder which neighbors
had these names
written on worn post-it notes,
taped to the fridge.
I wonder if the worst thing
in this whole world
could be being forgotten.