Man Shadow

by John Grey

It staggers behind you
weak and frail, like something
abandoned in a desert of
thin, parched darkness.
It crawls down the sidewalk,
its near lifelessness
somehow keeping up
as it grimly clings
to the blind generosity
of your shoes.
When you stop,
it gathers up the shards
of its own hopelessness,
slowly folds them up
into something half-resembling shape
but with no body,
no content.
At night, it’s sucked up
in the cold chambers of sleep,
a long, weary imitation of you
the best it can hope for
as existence.
And yet, you have
such affection for this man.