The Fourth

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together.
~T.S. Eliot, “The Wasteland”

Today I am the morning man
Who shovels through my snowy walk.
That night, the woman shadow-shoveled
In the warm-crushed rowing dark:

Two hunched thinkers, lovers, clutched
At light’s raked progress over flesh
While two shame-shades slipped from
The scene, dry hands in cold pockets.

Myriad distant darkstars, earthshine
Scratched up by the waxing moon
Begged to be that dim streetlight,
Watching what bright shadows do.

2013