The park is for other people.

We exist in its margins.

We’re not statues, 

but not the clasped

defiance of youth either, 

but a middle way, 

where the bench waits, 

and the hands, 

and the long republic of time 

that will seat us, 

one way or another, 

are among its iron witnesses.

Between us the air is a hinge, 

rusted, creaking with all the years 

we have not yet lived. 

The lovers pass like a flame, 

the elders sit like ash. 

And we - 

we are the smoke, 

curling, vanishing, 

halfway to memory, 

halfway to dust.

And the pigeons and ducks

are indifferent.

And the sun shine on faces

and greensward alike.

We’re not young enough to run, 

not old enough to quit,

just stuck in the middle,

one eye on the lovers,

the other for the old ones,

having been passionate

now awaiting our turn 

to be either desperate or forgotten. 

And hell, maybe that’s the joke - 

the park keeps filling with ghosts 

and we keep pretending 

we’re not already one of them.

Then the wind lifts a leaf,

its brief excursion a reminder

of how the heart finds balance –

between weight and air current,

between what is held

and what must be let go.

So we hold.

We don’t yet let go.

John Grey is an Australian-born poet, playwright, and short story writer. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where he works as financial systems analyst, has written a weekly poetry newspaper column, and has played with the band House to Let.