A List of Shadows

Bruce McRae

The shadow of your sorrow

hath destroy’d the shadow of your face.

—Richard II, William Shakespeare

The shadow of a wheel

coming back around on itself.

The shadow turned inside-out,

then back-to-front, then upside-down.

The shadow in league with cupidity,

grown stout and cat-lazy.

The one where you can hear rain falling

and angels mewling and doubting voices.

Shadows comprised of nothing but frost.

The moon’s shadow, walking across the Earth,

Sol’s silent partner in intrigue.

The shadow as dangling black fruit

and whomsoever eats of it forever corrupted.

Shadow-puppets, their dioramas in flames.

The hand-shadow, now a stork,

now a silhouette of a timberwolf’s jaw.

The sun, with its cast of shadows.

Mobs darkening by the hour.

Whole navies driven under a black water.

And finally, the shadow of the Self,

life’s ghost a shade rummaging in the roses.

The other you nobody talks about.

Not worth a mention.

BRUCE McRAE, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as POETRY, Rattle and North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have also been broadcast and performed globally.