I don’t like missing you, but it happens on the regular. Like yesterday, sitting next to an empty bench on the 2 train.

A couple sat down across from me at the Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum stop, with slightly different but still matching berets covering their gray heads. They took turns leaning in to talk about plans and trains and their trip to the Brooklyn Museum. He wore the fluorescent wristband so casually, not caring if commuters called them tourists. Large, rosy sunglasses rested on her stately nose and a prominent cicada pin was attached to the center of her black beret. He wore round tortoise shell eyeglasses and a plaid scarf tucked up close to his scruffy, gray beard.

When they weren’t talking, she just leaned against him with her gloved hands folded across her travelers bag. She slipped into a train induced doze and they looked good together, sitting there.

He took out a pamphlet and then a map and they considered the options for the rest of Sunday afternoon. Their friendship looked worn in, like their scuffed up casual shoes, even if they did look tired from adventures.

I had just seen you a couple hours before, but the train made me miss you. This gray haired couple with a worn-in friendship made me wish you were sitting on the empty bench beside me.

I don’t like missing you, but it happens on the regular.