Absence

No steps creak the boards with heavy soul.

No humble warmth shapes the sofa, bereft, alone.

Screen stares blank, cold, no whispered hum into the unknown late.

Books read unspoken words, unshelved, laid to rest beside mugs unpoured.

Missed calls ring in silence, undialed and unheard.

No ghost stirs the velvet night, empty haunts.

No spirit glides to withdraw in dusty shadows.

No sound nor sign that speaks his presence in chilled breaths by an open door, from there beyond or is it in between?

Just the darkness as it threads its mournful fingers through barren branches while the land rests draped in sable, deeply still, unseen and unseeing.

A going, perhaps, but never gone.

A lingering absence that embraces without touch.