Companion

I’m companion to a new author, a gay man

hiking because he can, because he doesn’t

fit in the world he’s born to, a man walking

the length of the Appalachian Trail with not

a word about anything but the companions

he met & played with along the way — wild

doesn’t come into it, not one encounter of

ascent, descent, fright, injury, flower, tree

yet after all this play, his song & dance at

reaching Katahdin, his re-entry into that

foreign world where he’s still odd one out

still alone, now he steeps himself in theory

I recognize his angle, it’s intellectual, make

a framework that explains why paths are

paths, how humans like horses, like ants

make paths by going some way for some

reason again & again, how a path betters

itself — shorter, smoother, wider — by use

here to there, possibly there back to here

again, as if going had to be purposeful to

matter, as if the matter were not the facts

of what happens during & around the path

time of day, weather, the sight of, sound of

smell of, taste of every natural companion