Your Shadow in the Autumn Twilight by Xiang Xu

Your Shadow in the Autumn Twilight

I see your shadow in the Autumn twilight

reek of Jim Beam and the hum of summer bees,

collecting a deer’s footprints and a cardinal’s sad ballads

I want to slumber in my yard clad in golden brown,

dreaming of a chance encounter with

a lost elf on a Christmas Eve

Only yesterday, I learned to love the frigid winter morning,

until yesterday, I wasn’t used to your haunting drawl

in my dreams

All my life, I have been searching,

I find nothing but my ghost

buried deep in a Delta swamp—

Where cypress trees,

mosquitos, and alligators

guard my buried memories.

Xiang Xu was a country singer and an academic, who received his M.A. in Southern Studies and PhD in History from the University of Mississippi. Xu returned to China in May 2025 after his 13-year residence in rural Mississippi. Xu's poems have been featured in Deep South Magazine, Delta Poetry Review, and Tipton Poetry Journal. He currently lives in Guangzhou, China.