The Ceiling

I heard her leave at six in the morning.

Furniture dragged. One long scrape,

then another. I lay there counting.

Three days of nothing.

Then new footsteps started up —

heavier at the heel,

crossing the room in a pattern

I don't recognize.

The stain on the ceiling is shaped like nothing.

A country with no name.

I didn't know I'd memorized her gait

until it was gone.

Four years, maybe six words total —

the hallway nod, the elevator silence —

and somehow I knew the sound

of her pacing at two a.m.

when she couldn't sleep.

I knew the exact weight of her

moving in the dark above me.

Now there's someone else up there

crossing the room a different way

and I have to start over

and I don't know why that matters.

I'm lying here at six in the morning

looking at the ceiling.

It does.