How kind, to leave them at the door for us. Still laced, still warm inside, the soft leather darkened at the heel where the foot has sweated all day: sugar, salt, damp, everything we love, folded up and set down in the dark like an offering. They think they are only resting.
We are already inside. Down in the toe, where the light never reaches and the air stays close, we have begun the slow, generous work. A cotton lining is just a meadow that has not been rained on yet. We will rain on it.
The human will find us in a week, or a month, and make the small worried sound they make, and reach for the sprays and the sunlight and the little cedar blocks meant to keep us out. We do not mind. We have watched them do this to the bread, to the grout, to the window frame.
They are so devoted to newness, so busy postponing, buffing and airing and tucking things away dry. It is a beautiful hobby. It buys them a season, sometimes two.
But shoes are made to hold a warm damp thing over and over, and then to be forgotten in a closet all summer. We were promised this the day the cow became leather. We are patient about a promise.
Wear them another year. Walk them thin. Leave them by the door.
Everything soft comes home to us eventually, and everything, given time enough, is soft.