She sits on the cold slats without noticing they are cold, and I would give anything to be that ungrateful.
It is the man beside her I keep watching. He has fallen asleep against her shoulder mid-sentence, mouth open, one hand still curled around a paper cup gone lukewarm, and she is letting the weight of his whole tired head rest on her, holding perfectly still so he won't wake.
She checks the time. She is annoyed, I think, that he sleeps through the good afternoon. She does not know what she is holding. The heat of a skull. The small drool spot spreading on her sleeve. The exact pressure of another person deciding, without deciding, to trust you with the machinery of his neck.
The slats are painted green and peeling and somebody long ago carved two initials I recognize into the armrest, though she rests her arm right over them and never feels the grooves. Pigeons work the gravel at her feet. A dog drags its person past. The bench is warm now where they have been sitting, warm the way a body makes a thing warm, and she'll stand up soon and leave that warmth behind for the next stranger without ever once knowing she made it.
Stay a little longer. Let him sleep.
The email will wait, the warmth will not.