As his daughter watches from the doorway
she can’t realise how exactly
she has got him right – how each time
he carries his kitbag to the bus
he will end his journey at another house
where another daughter will wait for him.
And another wife will embrace him,
as her mother did just now,
and all three will go inside.
what she doesn’t know, his daughter, is where –
some corner of Connecticut,
some Atlantic island – there are no leads,
and she would never ask.
And does her shadow-sister look like her?
Is she blonde, is her mother blonde,
do they speak English, has her father
hidden a language for years?
And does he take his other daughter
on long walks through the pines,
and tell her about his travels,
about the people he’s met, about himself?
There is so much about her father
she does not know, and so little time
between his absences to learn it.
Does her shadow-sister know about her,
or does she begin to suspect?
Which of the two is the shadow home?