Right there on the chair
Flowers that must have been for me.
An orchid corsage atop a box.
Inside, a white dress – my size.
His jacket draped over the chair
and a seat cushion from an airplane.
I waited by the window,
where was his car?
Where was he?
No text, no call, nothing.
That’s when I saw it,
a thread on the floor.
Long, red, so close to the
cherry of the hardwood
that I would have missed it
were the sun not so bright
through such clean windows.
Clean windows! Such clean windows!
My mind raced… were they clean
the day we signed the lease?
I sat waiting for as long as
I thought reasonable, given, well…
You know… the strangeness of it all.
Then, as the sun left the floor
creeping up onto the wall
the tiny hands appeared.
One by one. Handprints about the size
of one of those tiny monkeys
you see at the zoo. They were all
over the wall. Just the hands.
Then, behind me, footsteps!
Not human footsteps.
No. Not a ghost, like a human ghost,
a dead person or something.
Tiny footsteps running fast,
as if a crowd of them were gathering.
I tried to pick up the flowers and
the dress, which had fallen to the floor,
But they became so heavy,
as if suddenly made of lead,
like gravity had somehow multiplied
by thousands and thousands,
yet I could move effortlessly.
Needless to say, fear took over,
and I ran to the door.
When I turned around,
everything was back as it was…
the dress in the box,
his jacket draped just so,
and the orchids like a bow on top.
