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They Say a Shade is a Ghost

Sam New

What lives outside the shadow? In the bedroom,

mother draws the curtain, stretches her arms in the dark,


shows me how to hold my infant niece, rock her to sleep.

As the youngest, I never needed to hold anyone.


Mother teaches me how to stand.

She performs in a sliver of window light:


her legs in second position, her hips sway. She hula-hoops

in slow motion. There’s a smooth bounce to it, like waltzing.


Harpa, cradled in a blanket, floats in her arms—suspended

like she’s on a raft. Mother keeps


the wide-awakeness of an ocean after storm.

When she’s dead weight, lay her down.


Mother whispers as she dances, You try.

I’m slow to assume her grace. I’ve found it before,


in other forms. This kind of dancing in the dark is different.

My awkward arms hold Harpa close to my chest, I see


the light of her eyes look up, then blink slowly to shut.

Slow to shut. I dance


her into dreaming, lay her down on the mattress.

My shadow—a part of her weight—blankets over.




Sam New is an MFA Poetry candidate at Old Dominion University. Her work appears in Barely South Review, Waccamaw Journal, and Virginia Poets Database. Her work is forthcoming in South Dakota Review, Birdcoat Quarterly, and Glassworks Magazine.

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