At the edge of the fields, the farmhouse leaned into the wind, as if it had grown tired of resisting. The porch sagged where weight had lingered too long. The boards, weathered and worn by time, had long since ceased to carry an echo. Words had seeped into the grain, softened and consumed completely.
Rain slapped sideways, worming into every corner. It turned closeness into distance, made silence feel jagged—volatile. Conversations had once moved freely through the space, light and effortless, until they began to stretch too far, lose shape, and vanish altogether.
The door drifted open, an unspoken confession begging reprieve. Rain-soaked flannel clung to his shoulders; muddy boots scarred the boards. His fingertips skimmed the table rim, then the chair back, tracing surfaces bruised by tenderness and friction. He paused where her breath once lingered, held fast by a memory of love and fury.
He stepped back into the room; the memories embedded in the floorboards held fast. By the window stood the one left behind: still, watchful, marked by what remained. The space held more than either voice could carry. A loose plank beneath the porch ticked like a clock out of rhythm. Time wasn’t moving.
He stared at the place where the shadow of their past still lingered. The rain had caught him on the way, soaking through his coat, sliding down his neck, and pooling in the folds of the fabric. It clung to him like a memory, speaking the words he couldn’t bring himself to say.
By morning, the boots were gone, but the flannel stayed. Even when absence is all that’s left, some things remain—lingering long after the storm has passed.
Unworn
A Poem by Kerry Ann Wiley
It wasn’t the rain
that undid the stillness.
Not the coat left damp,
or the porch light
blown out by morning.
It was the quiet
that climbed in after—
took off its shoes
and settled,
like it had always belonged.
By autumn,
the wind arrived differently.
Too polite.
Slipped through the frame,
like it had been gone too long to knock.
If there’s ever a return,
no questions.
Just the flannel—
left where it always was,
draped like it carried
the outline of what had been,
the weight of what never fully left.
And the storm,
still rumbling in the distance,
trying to finish what it began.
Inside,
nothing had shifted.
The hook still held the flannel
like a hand that hadn’t let go.
The floor still gave
that faint shift, like it remembered where weight used to rest.
The wind still slipped through its old opening
carrying meaning—
too subtle for words. Silence spoke in return.
The farmhouse told its story: storms survived, silences learned.
A flannel shirt hung like a coat and an unspoken promise, its warmth a trace of what once was.
Outside, the wind stilled after the rain, honoring the silence.
Secrets remained—unspoken.
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