MY SHADOW
by Duane Locke
My shadow performed angular acrobatics,
As if music hall performer in Nineteenth-Century Paris.

I asked my shadow, "Why are you wearing a top hat,
Making those absurd gestures?"

My shadow said, "I'm the only thing that has been close
To you all your life, and I hate to see you so sad. So I decided to entertain."

Entertain, I said to myself, even my shadow does not understand me.
Suddenly, I realized my shadow understood me better than I understood myself.

© 2000 by Duane Locke
Look up other work by Duane Locke in the Author Index.

Duane Locke, Doctor of Philosophy in Renaissance Literature, Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, Poet in Residence at University of Tampa for over twenty years, publisher of over 2,000 poems in over 500 print magazines such as American Poetry Review, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Black Moon, and Bitter Oleander, author of 14 books of poems, cyber-poet with over 400 acceptances by online zines, photographer, listed in PSA's WHO'S WHO as one of the top twenty nature photographers, painter, currently having a one-man show of over 30 paintings at the Pyramid gallery in Tampa, winner for poetry of the Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charles Agnoff, and Walt Whitman awards, now lives alone and isolated in the sunny Tampa slums. He lives estranged and as an alien, not understanding the customs, the costumes, the language, some form of postmodern English, of his surroundings. His recreational activities are drinking wine, listening to old operas, and reading postmodern philosophy.
RoW Jump back to Rustlings of the Wind

All Rustlings of the Wind: Frought Issue pages copyright © 2000 by Lorien Creatives. Page contents (poems, stories, artwork) copyright by their respective owners, as noted. All rights reserved.

No works in Rustlings of the Wind may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise without permission in writing from the copyright owner of the works.

editor     webmaster