The Furniture Rearranges Itself

The hallway clock forgets the rhythm


it learned last week—

now it ticks in a foreign tongue.

A coffee mug still warm


sits where a suitcase once leaned,


its handle turned east,


toward the morning I didn’t expect


to be quiet so soon.

There are shoes by the door,


but not those shoes.


The ones that tracked sand,


that paused in hesitation


before stepping in


those are gone,


but their pattern remains in the mat’s tired smile.

I sweep petals from a rug


that never had flowers,


only the echo of their weight.

The window light is sharper now,


as if it’s been given orders.

As if clarity is the new arrangement.

I water the plant they gifted me,


a thing that does not bloom


but grows anyway


reaching toward something unsaid


in the space between goodbye and becoming.

The stove now hums recipes


not meant for crowds,


and the walls breathe slower.

I speak to them in plans and blueprints,


in calendars with teeth,


in sentences that begin with when.

Outside, a wind shifts

like a coat being shrugged off,


leaving behind a scent


I’ll never quite name,


only follow.

There is no absence


only furniture


rearranging itself


in the rooms they once walked through.

My grandparents are leaving soon, I am adjusting to this reality. I have loved our time together and will eagerly await our next reunion.