Dust Line

Pushing the bed, a heave,

a scrape on the floorboards.

The vacuum hums, then stops,

caught on something I didn't believe

was still there.

A sock, gray, stiff with dust,

a forgotten shape. It holds

the memory of a foot, a crust

of years, the story it unfolds

is just of slow rust.

How long has it been there,

a flat ghost, gathering its own slow world?

The light finds it, suddenly bare.

A silent, dusty thing, curled

into a forgotten air.