Traces

She leaves her little shoes
around the house
posed in plie turnout,
stacked in a corner,
tossed under a sofa.

They are pink and scuffed,
or white and strapped
with flowers, polka dots
or dangling plastic beads.

They prance and run and play
and trip and skip
and rarely rest,
these solid shoes.

They grow from year to year
and travel around the house
like skittish spiders
eschewing their proper home.

I stumble on them in the dark;
they can't be found at morning's break,
these wandering canvas and leather boats
sailing on their silent sea.

But I will miss them
when they're gone, their stomps
and romps and circumabulations;
these bookmarks of a life,
these footsteps through my own.