The Name Faded

The plaque’s letters are blurred, rubbed thin

by sun, by years of strangers’ hands,

a name swallowed by peeling stickers and dirt.

An old man paused, fingertips tracing the cold metal,

then moved on, his shadow slipping past.

No words passed his lips; the silence folded around us.

The bench holds more than wood and nails,

a resting place for stories I’ll never hear,

a stranger’s memory caught in cracked varnish,

a quiet marker of absence and time.

I sit and feel the weight of unknown grief,

a pulse beneath the oak’s spreading arms,

where the past collects like dust in empty seats.