The hallway light still flickers;
I’ve decided not to fix it.
Small hesitations suit the house now.
They go unnoticed, like she did.
The dust returns in polite waves.
She hated clutter, but now
even the ashtray feels arranged
an accidental shrine to argument.
I hear she’s in a town
where midnight comes without sound,
where windows don’t creak
and the clocks have softer hands.
She always wanted the kind of silence
that doesn’t require approval.
We kept the other kind
the silence of shared rooms,
the hush before someone apologizes.
The curtains still hold
a faint suggestion of her perfume
something like rain
trying not to be noticed.
She took her coat, but not the scarf
that held too many goodbyes.
I left it by the window
where she once watched the midnight trains
and said nothing.
The calendar remains open to June.
She left in June.
I do not correct it.
Some months earn their permanence.
If she returns
and I still expect
there’s tea in the drawer,
and the chair still knows her shape.
I sleep late now.
But sometimes I wake
when the clock leans toward midnight
just long enough
to listen for footsteps
that do not arrive.
.
.