words by ava

A man, older. A shaggy gray beard drags beneath his chin. A gaze like stolen time; his gaze, liquid beneath the rising sun, lingers; I can feel it. 

A girl, brown hair tied back. Waves escape to fall before her ear. Amidst the rising sun, she is softened, a pencil drawing yet to be hardened by the dictation of color, yet to be hardened by city life.

Eyes, dull, fail to reflect the rising sun. Yet, the crinkle of crows feet as they putter to the edges of his face, serve as evidence of long lost laughs.

Her head, bent double, scans the left page of her book. The spine held lightly at her fingertips. Love radiates; the page, held as if a dear companion. Her fingers grasp its twin, a nervous flick, too rough, and the page, the once trusty companion, crumples like the whisper of an autumn leaf. 

His lips pursed, grip an unlit cigarette. The whir as he thumbs the lighter wheel, but the flame does not touch the tip. To grip the cylinder, rolled paper, a familiar sensation, a record of times past. How many times has he sat here, lips hugging a deathstick, sucking, but with no intake?

She breathes, a weighted exhalation flutters the pages. She is troubled by the words that tell of an infinite world just within grasp; that exists solely between the grip of her thumbs.

Beneath his lips I can see no further. My peripheral vision grants me an incomplete picture, but I refuse to look up. Old men love to look at me. Do I look like their daughters, their granddaughters, or do they simply like the way I look? Perhaps they hope for some recognition, they ought to know, they will never receive. 

Just beyond her, a grassy green stretches towards Avenue A. The park bandshell, its wood long carried off, used to stand there. In 1991, I stood on A and watched them, the bandy legged city officials, tear it down. They took with them, not wood, but the disjointed makings of a haven. The bandshell, once the site of our gatherings and plannings, had been turned to dust, and I stood, at the gates, locked out, still yet to be let in. 

His hand rises, piercing the air above his head. A five-fingered hello, a gesture in my direction. I am, again, distracted. Come to read, I can no more. Can’t he see I wish to be alone? What will he do next, I wonder, as his steady gaze displays an unmatched, unfaltering serenity.  

The wiry green bench hardens beneath her. She is cemented, held in place, as she reads on, seemingly unbothered by the patter of feet and delighted shouts behind her. Her back holds no arch, she does not slouch, she does not tire. I was once that young. 

“Papa, I told you, no smoking!” A young girl, hands firmly planted on her waist, arrives in a blur. “It’s bad for your lungs,” she shouts stubbornly. The indignation of a child— oh, I was once that young. He chuckles at her displeasure. “I was only thinking about it.” The park bench aches as he stands, the resonation of the echo the only evidence he was ever there at all. And in his spot, the next generation arrives.