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.
Copyright Credit: 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.