Unwelcome Projections

In my dreams, not the ones where we're in incredible places, but the ones where the months fly out from now like so many dealt cards, I sit on a bench with its best days behind it, I wonder who put it there, what age of civic engagement it must have been to put a bench by a lake so distant from anywhere else, in fact I can't remember where I am, only that it is peaceful and that you are somewhere. And I'm always holding something to give: a mess of papers, wrapped up poorly-prepared cookies, once a cactus. So I know you must be coming, but the there's not much sun left, and first I sit atop the bench, then lay down across it, then return to how I started, with my hands and whatever item in my lap. And I feel that where I am must be so hard to find, that I know you must be looking, but when it gets dark, but never so far along that there's absolutely no sun, I start to worry that you wanted to find me but had to give up, and it's just me and the lake and the bench still, but no longer peaceful, and I worry, and I wake up.