For Gerry McGrath

       “I have a little shadow
          That goes in and out with me
       And what can be the use of it
          Is more than I can see.”
                                           (RLS)



Remember the bedtime story
of the thin boy and his shadow
that slipped beneath the door:

I always worried how the shadow
coped on the other side
without its boy;

whether it lived in two dimensions,
like Tintin,
or filled out – pop! –

and grew real flesh.

Remember how we posted
poems under each other’s
doors. Yours were about

the deep forest where we walked
together through its endless middle
to the supermarket just

beyond; and it was you
who stopped and stared
into the real shadow

and saw the wild boar
for a fraction
of a second

or so you said.