The Great Explorer

I think of your boots;
how you loved them,
how you hated them.

How they took on
your smell, the musk
of your sweaty feet,

the taint of you -
salting blisters
as you walked

onwards, upwards
always further
away from me

into those places
I could not follow.
Your hunger

never sated. 
Your thirst
never slaked.

Always the explorer,
Always the haunted,
the crease of your back.

Except, coming home;
tired, weary, bones
filled with ice

and lead -
just a man -
you sank into me.

Let my hands
so soft, so clean
run themselves

over you, map
my way back
into your body,

hold one heavy
foot in my palm
feel the weight,

the ghost of your boots,
stilled in the corner,
waiting.