You have left no footprints here.

Many shoes have scuffed these gleaming hallways dull,
Gauche and mudcaked, large and echoing and
Careless.
Many hands have scrawled initials on these walls, invasive.
Gouged ownership into wooden panels with small, coarse blades
Pulled from pockets.

It is true that dust has lain in drifts
In silence
On every surface of my heart
For so long that the wings of a trapped moth could create
Snow angels and murmuring hieroglyphs along the window ledge,
The lightest sigh kick up a sandstorm on any landing,
The flickering of a single candleflame expel eddies of powdery currents to settle in concentric ripples, like the whispering chiffon skirts of a ballerina crumpling to curtsy.

It is true, as well, that every morning I fling wide the doors
And let the light in,
But light has no fingers, no arms or heartbeat,
No
Breath,
And when it fades
Leaves not a trace.

Evidence of past trespassers lies strewn,
Enshrined in a large, beautiful mausoleum with sparkling windows and
Total silence.
I took your hand and led you down each hallway,
Showed you the aging murals and
The haunted rooms--
Places where shutters slam of their own accord
And faces besides one's own inhabit mirrors--
Waltzed with you in the grand, shrouded foyer,
Sang to you sitting on the eaves in the starlight
But never once
Did I leave you to your own devices.

Not an heirloom did I let you leave your fingerprints upon,
And wherever I led you
Not a breath stirred--
The solid, blue stillness remained,
A former time trapped in glass
Catching and releasing tricks of light to mimic movement,
And only I spoke, only I sang, only I
Waltzed.
Only my footfalls echoed
And only my shadow soared,
For as long as I touched you
You could never touch
Me;
Paper thin, a refraction from the other side
A ring of crystal whose echo would ****** into
That inevitable quiet, so rich and heavy
Like the dust adorned velvet drapes I draw
Each night and peel back at daybreak.

Like a forest preserved,
Only light enters here
And only images leave.
The beaten paths have been
Abused
But only those who made them may change any:
The rest are only visitors, who take nothing but breaths
And leave nothing but silence,
Who **** nothing but time
Although they may hurl stones
And stir up no dust whatsoever,
Regardless of their flailing passions.

Many loves have scarred this heart,
Burnt names in lists
Into the railings and stair treads so that I may touch nothing without feeling the remembered heat.
Many souls have lit this hall with sacred gold
And bounced their laughter off the beams.

But your name
When spoken
Fell like a shadow on the floor,
Grasping feebly at a few dreamy dust motes illuminated by an errant shaft of sunlight
Before fluttering into silence.
Many names make this heart
A temple and a
Tomb
But yours
Is not among their number--

Another day is ended,
Another sun is set,
And you
Have left no footprints here.