The eerie silence floats down around her,
A peaceful but smothering thick shroud,
She stands solitary surveying the still,
Willing her heart to stop beating so loud,

The clock softly mocks her,
With it’s taunting tick-tock,
No, that’s not his footsteps,
Or his key in the lock,

A short sudden laugh,
A tear falls from her eye,
Only seventeen days,
Since he waved her goodbye,

He’d stood proudly on the runway,
Uniform crisp and smart,
A crocodile smile as the hand of fear,
Grips tightly round her heart,

Another long day passes by,
Another day less to wait,
She sighs as she picks up the waiting pen,
And slowly strikes off the date,

The news comes like a bullet,
More explosions, another death,
Tears stab sharply at her eyes,
She sits holding in her breath,

She hears the name-not his, not his,
And she swims in guilty relief,
While miles away, on that cold winters day,
A heart shatters with deafening grief,

The dark nights slowly get shorter,
The winter days slowly less bleak,
His voice sounds less weary and more full of hope,
In the snatched minutes they can speak,

He’s close to coming home now,
Her heart beats a rhythmic flutter,
Hours away from escaping mortar blasts,
And random machine-gun stutter,

She walks towards him quickly,
He waits patiently, alone,
He engulfs her tightly in his arms,
And whispers in her hair, “I’m home.”