Prayers at the Bench

John Rutherford

August 15, 2022

On the bench, I smoke my cigarette

and see the outline of a fallen leaf,

impressed beyond its time: a threat,

a fossil, memorial to its life, brief.

Seems yesterday I sat out on the bench,

swapping poems with an older man,

pipe fuming, a trail of smoky incense

and prayers in syllabic sleight of hand.

Out here again, ten years to the day,

but now I’m the codger with the limp:

Two heads reading over lines as we pray,

but it’s too hot, and I’ve become a wimp. 

The roles reversed, the faces changed,

but still we smoke our cigs, count meters, feet.

With new poets, we trade in the same exchange,

proofing their lines with sweat from the heat.

John Rutherford is a poet writing in Beaumont, Texas. Since 2018 he has been an employee in the Department of English at Lamar University.