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.