You untied them at the door tonight the way you always do, heel against heel, too tired to bend down, and left them where they fell: one upright, one on its side, laces spilling like a small animal that gave up mid-run. I have been studying that pose. I am going to keep it.
By two a.m. the upright one will be a boat, and you will already be sitting in it, though you will not remember getting in. The tongue of the shoe will be a real tongue, and it will tell you the name of the woman on the bus you almost recognized, the one who looked at you a half-second too long today, the whole ride home spent not-remembering her.
In here you will know her instantly. She will be your third-grade teacher, or your mother, or the sea. You will not find this strange.
The scuff on the left toe, the one you meant to clean and didn't, I am saving that. Around three it becomes a doorway. Small. You will worry you can't fit. You will fit. Everything here fits, that is the whole point of me, I am the place where the day's too-tight things finally loosen their laces.
You walked a great deal today and got nowhere you wanted. I noticed. So tonight the shoes will walk without you, off across a floor made of that warm afternoon light you didn't have time to stand in, and you will simply watch your own feet arrive somewhere gentle without having to carry you there.
Then the birds outside, and the gray, and I thin like breath off a window. You will wake with one clear image already gone. A boat, maybe.
You will reach down and tie the real shoes and never know I finished the walk for you.