They used to sit here
These concrete benches
On Malcolm Square
Dad, Uncle Tony, Uncle Fred,
Uncle Bernard
Other uncles
One time I got wind
Of the old men’s conversation
It was about the successes of children
And grandchildren
They wore the crowns as their own
I could see it in the smiles
That showed the creases in their cheeks
At another time
They were raising their chalices
Of childhood memories
I could hear their stories breathing
With lives of their own
Drawing near the characters of the past
In a failed love
Or someone else’s failed love
There was always a story
Set in the years
That have abandoned them
Or which they abandoned
Like they were summoning the past
To be in the present
They used to sit here
On these concrete benches
Uncle Bernard stopped returning
Uncle Tony, too, in 2012
Dad, then Uncle Fred in 2013
Now I see only Uncle Basawil
Talking to an old man
Much younger than him
I am sure the past is with him
Breathing with a life of its own
And I wonder if I will see him again
When I pass this way
Next year
