Three Steps From Your Door

Coffee in a chipped blue cup

Balcony above the little store

You hang dresses on the line

I count heartbeats on the floor

Bare feet tapping out the rhythm

Of your day across the boards

Every creak another question

Every glance another chord

Three steps from your door

I keep turning back

Like the wind on this corner

Can’t stay on one track

If I cross that line

Will I leave as I came before?

Or lose my name

Three steps from your door

Your father plays the Sunday station

Old boleros through the wall

Down the street a horn is sighing

Streetlight shadows start to fall

You lean on the rusted railing

Laughing

“Are you scared of dark?”

I just watch your fingers dancing

On the edge of my remark

Maybe love is just a circle

Same small sidewalk

Same old song

I’ve been walking it for ages

Trying to get the words half-wrong

So you’ll smile and say them better

Pull me to that painted floor

Spin me once and close the distance

Between my doubt and your front door