There’s an empty room on that floor.
It’s been, oh, probably decades
since anyone has set foot
through that door,
and walked on the hardwood
along the wide window
where the sun penetrates deep between
the fibres of the curtains, gently blowing
in the cool summer breeze.
Decades since anyone sat in the soft leather chair
and put their feet up,
slept away the afternoon
with a newspaper draped delicately on their lap.
It’s been decades, I’d say,
since anyone heard the pitter-patter of the mice
running along the beams overhead,
and the barn owl resting on the peak of the roof,
surveying the landscape in the moonlight.
Decades passed,
and still it sits,
that old now empty room,
waiting for someone
to smell the musty air,
pull back the curtains,
watch the world outside the window run away
as it cycles through each day.
Yes, decades, I’d say.
And yet it still waits.