Her Shoes at My Door

Her Shoes at my Door
She forgot her shoes at the milonga.
I agreed to take them to her the next day,
But this morning I saw them waiting at my door
And I lost my senses for a moment.
"Maybe I could keep them," I told myself.
"They look good at my door,"
I thought.

I reluctantly decided to give them back.
So I drove by and dropped them off.
"Shoe delivery!"
I said.

She, her husband, the dogs, the cat and I
Talked for a while.
But my mind wandered for a while
Back to the shoes by my door, my mind
Wandered to a pretend world, a woman in my life.
She was upstairs watching a tango video,
Telling me to come upstairs
To see.

She just took a shower.
I felt her presence, good to have her here.
I was fooling myself that I could live without her,
That I could live without a companion.

Yes, I was fooling myself.
I had to give the shoes back.
No woman upstairs,
No woman freshly out of the shower,
Talking to her dog, as if he understood,
Swooning over a tango film clip
On the computer screen.

My shoes sit now alone at the door.
I wonder if they are angry at me.
Her shoes told me more about myself
Than I was ready for this morning.

The novel woman,
With her shoes at my door
Was a fiction written
Just for me.
By a lonely heart.

by Mark Word
31 May 2010


Photo credit:
"Los Zapatos Abandonados,"
by Sybille Word
18 Jan 2017