(A poetic reflection on my short story)

A soft-feathered blanket, worn and cold,
was gifted to me by a passing stranger.
I do not know how to name what I felt…
she was a sudden tremor beneath my ribs,
and when I breathed, I caught her scent,
a trace of warmth folded into winter air.

I held the blanket close,
not for its warmth,
but for the touch she had left behind…
as though a small universe
had been pressed into its fabric.

Her eyes were brief lanterns
in the fading afternoon;
her voice, a quiet snowfall,
melting before it reached the ground.

She walked away,
yet something of her remained…
an unnamed tenderness,
a delicate tremor,
the strange certainty that even strangers
can leave their fingerprints
upon the quietest chambers of the heart.

© Faruk Ahmed Roni