Right there on the chair
\nFlowers that must have been for me.<\/p>\n
An orchid corsage atop a box.
\nInside, a white dress \u2013 my size.<\/p>\n
His jacket draped over the chair
\nand a seat cushion from an airplane.<\/p>\n
I waited by the window,
\nwhere was his car?<\/p>\n
Where was he?
\nNo text, no call, nothing.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when I saw it,
\na thread on the floor.<\/p>\n
Long, red, so close to the
\ncherry of the hardwood<\/p>\n
that I would have missed it
\nwere the sun not so bright<\/p>\n
through such clean windows.
\nClean windows! Such clean windows!<\/p>\n
My mind raced\u2026 were they clean
\nthe day we signed the lease?<\/p>\n
I sat waiting for as long as
\nI thought reasonable, given, well\u2026<\/p>\n
You know\u2026 the strangeness of it all.
\nThen, as the sun left the floor<\/p>\n
creeping up onto the wall
\nthe tiny hands appeared.<\/p>\n
One by one. Handprints about the size
\nof one of those tiny monkeys<\/p>\n
you see at the zoo. They were all
\nover the wall. Just the hands.<\/p>\n
Then, behind me, footsteps!
\nNot human footsteps.<\/p>\n
No. Not a ghost, like a human ghost,
\na dead person or something.<\/p>\n
Tiny footsteps running fast,
\nas if a crowd of them were gathering.<\/p>\n
I tried to pick up the flowers and
\nthe dress, which had fallen to the floor,<\/p>\n
But they became so heavy,
\nas if suddenly made of lead,<\/p>\n
like gravity had somehow multiplied
\nby thousands and thousands,<\/p>\n
yet I could move effortlessly.
\nNeedless to say, fear took over,<\/p>\n
and I ran to the door.
\nWhen I turned around,<\/p>\n
everything was back as it was\u2026
\nthe dress in the box,<\/p>\n
his jacket draped just so,
\nand the orchids like a bow on top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Right there on the chair Flowers that must have been for me. An orchid corsage atop a box. Inside, a white dress \u2013 my size. His jacket draped over the chair and a seat cushion from an airplane. I waited by the window, where was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[2554,6113],"class_list":["post-136170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses","tag-mystery","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136189,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136170\/revisions\/136189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}