Nameless Seat

The bench waits,

worn wood polished by strangers’ weight,

under the small metal plaque

that bears only a name

and dates I don’t recognize.

Leaves curl and scatter,

dusting the letters with quiet dust,

a forgotten whisper in a busy park.

I sit and wonder who sat here before me,

what hands touched this grain,

what stories softened into stillness

between these slats.

The name feels like a breath

that’s been left behind,

a marker in a crowded silence,

the outline of someone

I will never know.

Here, in the slow afternoon,

life presses gently against absence,

a weight without form,

an unknown memory

in the wood’s quiet heart.