It wasn't just a sound;
it was a map,
leading to a world
I thought we would build -
a world where her laugh
would echo down the corridors of our home.
spilling into the rooms
where children would learn
the magic of their mother's joy

Her laughter -
was color and warmth to the walls
of gray stone.

A pebble skipping over still waters,
shaking the silence
of my life before her.

But it's gone now,
its music quieted.
I still wait to hear it -
its rise, its ripple, its reverberation
the careless abandon
that made me believe
tomorrow could be beautiful.

I live now among echoes,
pieces of her joy caught in the
corners
of old conversation.
I would give anything to hear it
again,
to let it anchor me
to the dreams
we started to weave.

But laughter, like love,
cannot be held in place.
It flutters away
as quickly as it came
and I sit in its absence
holding onto the memory
of a giggle