I remember once when I had first met Sam and my life was exploding into something bigger than I had ever experienced, I was crossing University Avenue on the corner where Kinsolving is. It was dark - I don’t remember where I was going - and the streetlights cast just the right amount and angles of illumination on me that I had two shadows for the first time. My one shadow had grown up with me. I remember how excited I was when it finally had breasts in profile! The other shadow was new, a stranger I didn’t know I had inside, outside, or on top of me. I wondered if one shadow was the good Amanda, the other the evil Amanda. Which was me-er?
This poem by Charles Simic reminded me of my second shadow. Will I ever really know my shadow(s) or my inner self? “The Inner Man”:
It isn’t the body
that’s a stranger.
It’s someone else.
We poke the same
ugly mug
at the world.
When I scratch,
he scratches too.
There are women
who claim to have held him.
A dog follows me about.
It might be his.
If I’m quiet, he’s quieter.
So I forget him.
Yet, as I bend down
to tie my shoelaces,
he’s standing up.
We cast a single shadow.
Whose shadow?
I’d like to say:
“He was in the beginning
and he’ll be in the end,”
but one can’t be sure.
At night
as I sit
shuffling the cards of our silence,
I say to him:
“Though you utter
every one of my words,
you are a stranger.
It’s time you spoke.”
-Charles Simic
