For Gerald, or Whoever

I sat down without looking and unwrapped my lunch.

The plaque on the armrest: a name, a bunch

of years — just two — and the word beloved.

The font slightly off-center. The shoved

green of weather at the metal's edge,

screwed into wood that doesn't match. The ledge

of someone's grief, is what it felt like.

I ate my sandwich. The Tuesday light

sat on everything. I looked the name up

on my phone while I finished. Came up

with nothing. No obituary. No page.

No photo. No reported age.

Just a name. Which someone loved enough

to bolt to a bench. That's the stuff

I keep turning over: the cost of the plaque,

the decision to put it there, the lack

of any trace I could locate.

The wood doesn't match. The font's not straight.

Beloved. Sitting in the sun and the rain,

waiting for whoever comes again

and sits without looking.