The Shadows Grew Tall

By Kerry Ann Wiley

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Every house has its familiar sounds: footsteps in the hallway, a chair moving across the floor. Some are so familiar that we notice only when they stop.

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The Shadows Grew Tall

There were questions unanswered
And names called down the hall;
A voice from the kitchen
Remembered them all.

The clock missed a minute.
The shadows grew tall.
A voice from the kitchen
Still traveled the hall.

There’s a noise in the hallway,
A bump and a creak.
The floorboards remember
What no one will speak.

There’s a mark on the wall
Where a picture once stayed,
A pale little square
That the sunlight betrayed.

A scratch on the table,
A dent in the chair,
And nobody remembers
How either got there.

The clock missed a minute.
The shadows grew tall.
A voice from the kitchen
Still traveled the hall.

Now the floorboards still grumble,
The walls bear the stain,
And the picture’s pale outline
Is all that remains.

The clock missed a minute.
The shadows grew tall.
The voice from the kitchen
No longer crossed the hall.

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The chairs sit undisturbed, though the floorboards still creak in the hallway, answering footsteps no longer heard.

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