Someone Moved My Chair

The piano room was smaller

Than I had kept it in my mind

The table had turned slightly

Like it had learned another line

Your coat was on the left peg

The clock was five minutes late

My shoes were by the doorway

But not in their old place

I saw it after dinner

When the plates had all been dried

The chair I used to sit in

Had been moved to the other side

No one said a thing about it

No one meant to make it clear

It stood there almost kindly

As if it had always been there

Nothing in the house accused me

Nothing asked where I had been

But every inch of quiet order

Knew how long I had not lived in it

Someone Moved My Chair

Only by a little

Only far enough to show

The room had kept on working

Someone Moved My Chair

And no one looked ashamed

I was still allowed to enter

Just no longer arranged

You poured tea without asking

Which cup I used to take

Then paused before the cupboard

Like memory had lost its shape

I said any one was fine

You nodded, almost glad

We both accepted softly

What neither of us had

A family does not vanish

It adjusts around the space

Where one person used to matter

In a more immediate place

Someone Moved My Chair

Only by a little

Only far enough to show

The room had kept on working

Someone Moved My Chair

And no one looked ashamed

I was still allowed to enter

Just no longer arranged

I could have pulled it backward

Made the table fit the past

But the floor had taken new marks

And my hands were not that fast

There are changes too polite

To turn into a wound

Just four wooden legs

At a different angle in the room

Someone Moved My Chair

And the meal went on without it

Bread passed hand to hand

Rain held against the glass

Someone Moved My Chair

I smiled and took the spare

Not because I did not notice

But because I noticed there