Vox Populi
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Peter Blair: After Image
In December, the shadows of tree trunks stay long all day, dark compasses pointing northwest to northeast by afternoon. Sweeping across the dead leaves and brown grass, they take turns lounging in wide wooden chairs in my neighbor’s yard, sliding up onto them like children. Sometimes the sun projects a branch with a few reluctant leaves onto another tree trunk and shadow-leaves grow from the hard, gray bark. Sometimes the shadows trick you into seeing a long narrow trench in the ground, a gap that opens all the way to the center of the earth—you glance away, then back, and swear your eyes sealed that hole forever, but it’s still there, like when you turn off the radio and push the button twice by reflex, and it stays on.
Copyright 2022 Peter Blair. Peter Blair's books include Farang and The Divine Salt both published by Autumn House Press.
Vox Populi 
That simile in the last stanza — such a lovely surprise…
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I agree, Laure-Anne. I admire Peter’s poems for their precision of language.
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