The Returned Stranger

The Returned Stranger

He came back from wherever he had gone those missing years,
He wore the same old jacket and he dried the same old tears,
His voice was like I had memorized it, lower by a bit,
But the stories did not line up and the silences were split.
He left before the morning and the guest room showed no trace,
Not a dent inside the pillow, not a print upon the case,
And I found my journal open to the year he went away,
With a handwriting that matched his, signing off: another day.