The Unspoken

Visiting my mother, the house

feels too quiet without him.

Not a painful quiet, just

a different kind of hum.

His armchair, empty.

A book, left open on the table,

face down, pages creased.

The things he didn't say.

They fill the spaces now.

They settle in the corners,

heavy, more solid than words.

His presence, now an absence,

still takes up all the air.