That outline on the wall, full of nothing—
that’s her.
She sewed herself to Pan that night,
though he didn’t know.
Boy, why are you crying?
If he’d looked closely he would have seen
that the silhouette was shorter than it should have been,
but he was too content to have one follow him so closely,
so completely,
mirroring all the things he loved best about himself.
Wendy liked when he beat his chest and threw his head back to crow
because she could do it too—long, loud, free.
So she remains, in the corner of his eye,
when he’s in that place just before sleep.
Oh, the cleverness of me.
This poem “Umbra” originally appeared in Canadian Literature 216 (Spring 2013): 84.
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