Crackling Paint

I find myself standing entranced near the window sill. The paint has crackled from the slow leek of air brushing past for near eighty years. I can see the many layers of paint- layers upon layers. I wonder not if the woman that picked the ageing yellow to cover the red knew the effort she was to endure. My mind did not think of her husband sitting in his rocker, as I had imagined so many times before, reading his evening paper smoking his pipe by the low light from his lamp. No, this time my mind stands still as I face this paned window. Protected by the very thin glass, knowing at any moment it too can shatter like any other glass house.
I know you've come while I was away. I can smell your perfume in the air and hear your laughter filling the void of which once conversation stood tall. We made our own memories in this cottage. The wooden floors have scuffs and mars from our heels shuffling in the wee hours before dawn to the sound from the old wind up phonograph. Perhaps your timid energy lingers here in the silence of this now, every increasing empty silence.
Farewell, my Phantom Lover, Farewell