I wonder if places can recall How deeply I was enthralled By the lifting crinkle of your nose, And how I met your eyes with awe. If they do, how much did they see? Do you suppose they think of you and me In the booths, on the benches, together— Always together, how we'd always be? Did they notice how you kept your hand, That quiet, subconscious reprimand, Against our sitting, always together? Is that something they could understand? I still haunt those places and see you there With my decadent, thousand-yard stare. Are they watching as I come and go, Overwriting happiness with despair? Lately, they have turned so saddeningly gray. Is that because I'm alone? You didn't stay? Perhaps, like me, they mourn the loss Of irretrievable futures on display. I'm curious: do they also dim for you The way old photographs sometimes do? The trees at Crenshaw Park don't block the rain When I join their solitary retinue. The leaves sit, and cry, and confer, And tell me how things really were: All that is in those benches was me, Taking cover from the storm in her.