Rhythm

The rhythm of footsteps, a presence heard before seen.

The smile that warms a coldness within.

"Home sick" he asks...an unusual query that surprises me.

Little does he know am almost a tramp nowadays.

We sit across , a familiar silence snuggling between us.

And in that handful of silence I lean my pain, my need for that strength I hold to in a strange place.

We speak nothing , and yet I suffice my pain in stolen moments of silence.

I read  half his second name at last.

Bedside a feeling of dread and utter aloneness, I throw a grief away with a smile against his.
As if nothing mattered when a presence was near.