Footsteps

FOOTSTEPS
By Adele Swift


Footsteps on the stairs,
clomp, clomp, clomp.
Footsteps on the stairs,
stomp, stomp, stomp.
Just when I reach a crucial point
and I'm picking at the air,
as the right word laughingly eludes me,
footsteps on the stair
distract me.
Who can that be?
Are they going all the way up,
or turning down the hall?
Will I have to wait for the bathroom?
Usually
in a house with wooden stairs
one learns a familiar tread
so it's familiar music,
a marker in the day
as it passes.

Adele Swift is a previous contributor to Circadian. Her infrequent blog is Swiftian Logic