Footfalls
By Kip Knott
Every day I hear my son’s tiny black-and-white patent leather shoes following me wherever I go.
When I take the dog for a walk through the early morning dew, I hear my son’s shoes shuffling through the wet grass. Back inside, I find them, damp, resting on the mat beneath the coat tree.
When I stand at the sink to do the dishes after dinner, now two plates fewer than a year ago, I hear my son’s shoes stomp on the hardwood floor behind me demanding my attention. I’ve never turned to look, though, afraid of what I know I won’t see.
Even when I go to the bathroom, my son’s shoes kick the door until I am through.
The last time my son wore his shoes was one year ago today, the morning of Halloween, the morning he turned six, the morning of the operation to mend the hole in his heart, the morning that turned into the day he died. I couldn’t let his shoes go then, even though I knew he would’ve wanted them with him forever.
Tonight I go to bed early, keeping the porch light dark and the shades drawn to ward off any children begging for a treat. I hear my son’s shoes tap dancing outside my bedroom door as I drift to sleep.
In my dream, I see my son and his mother holding hands as he flits from house to house in the bumblebee costume he wore the week before Halloween, the week before his operation, six months before his mother would leave taking all of her shoes with her. Our neighbors have candy ready just for him, and he scuffs his shoes on the pavement to make the sound his wings would make if only they could flap and help him fly.
When I wake, I hear nothing: no stomping, no kicking, no muffled shuffles through wet grass, no scuffing wing flaps. I look everywhere through the house, but my son’s shoes are nowhere to be found. I pull the curtains apart and peer out into the yard that widens into the open field where he used to catch fireflies on warm summer evenings. A trail of tiny green shoe prints leads away from the house and disappears into the field where the sun has just taken its first step out of the horizon and into the sky.
Kip Knott’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Flash Fiction Magazine, perhappened mag, Typishly and trampset. In addition, he is a regular monthly contributor to Versification. His debut book of poetry, Tragedy, Ecstasy, Doom, and so on, is currently available from Kelsay Books. His second full-length collection of poetry, Clean Coal Burn, is due in 2021, also from Kelsay Books. More of his work can be accessed at kipknott.com.