Telling Time
By
Jo McDougall
My son and I walk away
from his sister’s day-old grave.
Our backs to the sun,
the forward pitch of our shadows
tells us the time.
By sweetest accident
he inclines
his shadow,
touching mine.
from his sister’s day-old grave.
Our backs to the sun,
the forward pitch of our shadows
tells us the time.
By sweetest accident
he inclines
his shadow,
touching mine.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2001 by Autumn House Press. Jo McDougall’s most recent book of poems is Satisfied with Havoc, Autumn House Poetry, 2004. Poem reprinted from The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, 2nd ed., 2011, by permission of Jo McDougall and Autumn House Press. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.