The Light Under the Door

My neighbor moved yesterday.

I watched the movers all afternoon,

carrying boxes up the stairs,

down the stairs, up the stairs again.

I haven't spoken to them in three years.

We lived in the same hallway.

We passed each other in the morning sometimes.

We nodded. That was it.

Then yesterday I saw them on the stairs

with a cardboard box in their hands.

We didn't say anything.

They just kept going up.

That was the last time I saw them.

This morning the hallway is quiet.

Their door is closed and locked.

The thin strip of light that used to come

from under their door in the evenings—

the light I'd see when I came home late—

that's gone now.

I didn't know that light was there

until it wasn't.

The boxes are still stacked outside,

waiting for a truck I guess,

or maybe they're just going to stay there,

forgotten, the way things do.

I stand in my doorway sometimes

and look at where they were,

trying to remember if they ever said

anything to me, if there was ever

a moment when we could have been

something other than neighbors

who passed each other in the dark.

But there wasn't. And now they're gone,

and the hallway is darker,

and I'm standing here wondering

why I'm so sad about someone

I never even knew.