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# Theories of Time and Space
- URL: https://poetry101.love/theories-of-time-and-space/
- Published: 2026-09-25T23:45:27.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-25T23:49:15.000Z
- Description: by Natasha Trethewey
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: Natasha Trethewey, Poetry Association, Nov 2026, #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

You can get there from here, though  
there’s no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere  
you’ve never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one—  
by—one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this  
to its natural conclusion—dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where  
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain. Cross over  
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand

dumped on a mangrove swamp—buried  
terrain of the past. Bring only

what you must carry—tome of memory  
its random blank pages. On the dock

where you board the boat for Ship Island,  
someone will take your picture:

the photograph—who you were—  
will be waiting when you return

> Trethewey, Natasha D.. [Native Guard](https://www.google.com/books/edition/%5F/XNZCPgAACAAJ?kptab=getbook&ref=poetry101.love). United States, Houghton Mifflin, 2006.