There’s a beach bench in Barceloneta
where an artist captured scenes there
for a year.
I believed this was the bench,
the bench where we first kissed
four years from here.
Devouring the artist’s photos,
I searched for evidence of us —
excavated months in memory
and breached years.
But although I remember the kiss
(the one where your mouth nourished me,
reached to the roots of my soul),
that bench has gone from memory.
I’m sure now, it was another bench, that kiss
(with many others measured in years).
What’s left is only me, the bench and the sea
(and the memory)
the bench remains the same, I’m sure,
a little bleached by the beach
and the years, the moments, the scenes
and trenched memories.