Loneliness walks in, stealthily on his feet,
like the black cat in my alley
crouching in fear at a stranger's footfall.

He hovers around silently
and sits at the windowsill of my heart
like an obedient child
looking on at his recuperating mother.
Together then in silence,
we listen to the strange cries of peacocks mating,
as if they were Morse codes waiting to be deciphered.

And finally when I turn to him tired,
and yearn like a woman in love,
he wraps me warm
a wounded soldier's homecoming.