My shadow is a 5-year-old boy
attached to the bottom of my spine
asking questions of my bones.

Are dinosaurs in heaven?
How do you touch the moon?
When will I have an operation?

It’s followed me into the bathroom
to show me how the bumps on the top
of its salt and vinegar rice cake
looks a bit like the outline of a duck’s face.

Do planes have windscreen wipers?
Do bungalows have attics?
Do you know anyone who is invisible?

The sun has gone to bed and convinced
my shadow to do the same. The silence
in the house is a miserable, century long.

Carl Burkitt 2026