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.
