The cracked mirror

Last NaPoWriMo prompt, and I loved it. Thank you for keeping this until the end.

The cracked mirror

She moved slowly, carefully
in the shadowy interior,
from kitchen to main room,
of the ground floor flat that barred its shutters
against the flowing river of the street.

I could see her slow precise movements,
touching, arranging, dusting,
always careful, unhurried, solitary.

Perhaps it wasn’t dark inside, just unlit.
Perhaps she didn’t need light to see where he sat,
facing the TV, or by the window to read the paper.
Perhaps everything was as it always had been.
Except for the old man’s space.
Did she fill it with a ghost?

A ghost that called in her sleep,
a voice so loved, she could no longer not know, not look.
Perhaps, half-sick of shadows, she threw the window open,
to look down the flowing river of the street, straining
to hear the fading tirra lirra of an old song,
admit that it was empty,
and he would never come home.