The Vanished Trail of Ink

Under the white breath of the rubber,
the word vanishes, a mute cipher.
No clear trace, nor scent remains,
of imprinted sense, resolved life.
But the eye knows, the mind feels a subtle shiver,
of the black that danced there for an instant,
a ghost of form, never truly vile,
in the absorbed air, in the vacant space.

The fiber of the paper, tired and light,
keeps the trace, a pure non-sign.
Not a sound, not a shadow moving by,
but absence itself, its dark contour.
It is a non-memory that still clings
to a lost time, an echo in the silence,
the truth that hidden escapes,
a mute whisper without regret.