Night Shoes

(iambic tetrameter) The curtains fell and wrapped the stage as lights and accolades became another yesterday once more. Another night and one more show, another play that doesn't last beyond the venue alley ways. Applause became a murmur and the shuffle of impatient shoes now slowly faded out the door. The Company is dressed and gone, a spectral quiet stalked the din and chased it through the backstage halls. Conspicuous, the silence fell when last the alley door was locked, no one to care if I was late, no one to listen for the gate that creaked at midnight's lonely bells as eighteen times Westminster tolled down where the Phantom truly walks in night shoes where the echoes talk.