The Bench at Laurier

The slats are warm through my jeans. It's the first day this year that's been warm enough to notice, and the whole park knows it.

A woman goes by with a small dog that stops every four steps and has to be waited for. She waits. She has the patience of someone who did the math on this walk a long time ago and accepted the number.

A guy is sitting against the big elm with his eyes shut and headphones on, doing the head thing. Every so often his hand moves on his knee, which means there are drums in it.

The swings are all taken. A kid is going high enough that the chain goes slack at the top and then snaps — that sound, the one that makes every parent in the park look up.

Her mother is looking up. Her mother has been looking up for ten minutes and hasn't smiled once.

The woman with the dog comes back the other way. She nods at me. I nod back.

A man sits down on the far end of my bench, which is his right; it's a bench. We share it without acknowledging each other. Then I go, and he spreads out.