Echoes Wearing Shoes

Echoes Wearing Shoes

They show up after you—

not barefoot, never.

They lace themselves in the hallway,

tap the baseboards, test the stairs,

learn the pitch of each plank.

*

Your laugh does laps around the room,

wearing out the corners,

breaking in the silence

until it fits.

*

I sweep, and the dust says your name

In cursive, I can’t unlearn.

Even the lamp remembers

where you set down your tired.

*

The door keeps practicing closure.

It’s almost fluent.

But the echoes have keys,

and good posture,

and nowhere else to be.

*

On the sidewalk, their footfalls

arrive a half-second late,

polite as apologies,

persistent as invoices.

*

I try the trick of loud music,

But echoes love a crowd.

They borrow a jacket,

order the usual,

tip in small hauntings.

*

At night, I set out a pair of shoes—

the old ones with the soft tongues—

and ask them to walk themselves thin.

They do.

Leather learns mercy.

*

Morning finds the floor quieter.

I open the windows.

Fresh air fills the room

and keeps it.

*

What remains is a gentle scuff—

a map of having been—

and my feet, bare now,

learning the distance

between sound and leaving.