Shadowless

For Sam

I navigate the way through the woods.
I know it well, (as do you),
when to duck under low branches -
where the nettles are.

I can hear behind me that he doesn't.
He curses and groans. I laugh.
(And you, shadow, cling silently
to my heels. Patient.)

I take him to my hill - where the grass
is thinner - and the whole of the valley
stretches out before us like a muse reclining,
conscious of her curving dales.

There is a marker for this spot;
the remains of an ancient campfire,
a charcoal smudge. Cigarette smoke
on silk wallpaper - or bathroom tiles.

We both fold ourselves out, flat on our backs –
a pair of parallel lines. We’re silent for a long time,
I can almost feel the grass beneath us losing
its colour – sun-starved – making our own mark.

(But of course the sun goes right through you.)
Then he politely informs me that I'm getting
more and more like my mother every day –
I smirk but don’t dare disagree.

Conversation turns to our
impending polarization; his journey
to the south - mine, north.
I ignore the dull ache in my stomach.

He knows I want to talk about you -
that I've been thinking about you the whole time.
He can sense your ghost
lying at my side in the grass.

He knows he hasn't quite been alone
with me for almost two years.
(But like you, he is patient.)
I can hear it in all he doesn't say.

He sees the slow sinking
of my shoulders, feels the weight
of my sighs. He can tell this is the decline;
He is waiting for the end, much as I am.

And more than anything, he knows
that one day - soon - we will make this
journey through the woods again.
He will know the path better than you.

And it will just be the two of us.

Him. And me - shadowless.