I Am Your Shadow

I Am Your Shadow You literally crawl out of your bed before the sun has come up, Stretching reluctantly, knowing it’s another day on this island earth. So you drag yourself to the john down the hallway a bit, And urinate dutifully and automatically staring straight ahead, With thoughts of coffee germinating behind vague-viewing eyes, Which are not blinking due to not being fully cognizant Of your inherent location in the universe at the moment. But you move on in life anyway as if this morning ride Is your last dance with the fickle sun rising strong outside, Like a lantern-laden ship drawing nearer to port. The mirror in your messy boudoir of silks and sarongs, Reflects an exhausted young woman in need of repair, For the hours of menial employment ahead for the day Will perpetuate those lines, those creases of savage age. But green money must be earned with a smile, For the butcher will not give his meat freely, nor the potter his hands. You scratch again the itch on your leg, the rash behind your knee, And your customer buys two of each, and now There is green money in your hands for the till. The hour of sad afternoon arrives and it is time to find a thrill, The day is swearing obscenities at you from behind open windows; It is time to find boot-leg love on the run behind a garden trellis, Maybe with a mustached stranger wearing blue suspenders? Maybe with me your reliable shadow in a myriad of plodding walks at sunrise? Maybe with death himself, as he offers his business card Smiling with a carnation in his drooping lapel?