INK AND PAPER

There was a weight to the silence

almost a taste

it pressed me gently into my window seat

between two of my blinks I saw

two children holding

fistfuls of paper slips

I saw a man walking

older, slightly stooped

kind faced

the children approached him

starlings to a scrap of stale bread

heads bowed, a paper slip was offered

the man accepted and read it

humbly

with smiling eyes

nods were exchanged

few things are as perfect as children skipping

walking away, the man

crumpled

the slip of paper

newly redundant, it was claimed by a puddle

I thought of the ink blurring on the pure white

I could no longer see the children

but

I was sure that they were skipping