I watch a hawk swoop low, climb, 

black and tan feathered spiral, 
and remember a shadow—

pinion’s whisper, suggestion 

of dark and light suspended, 
blended beneath the hawk’s wings 

into pure wind—a shadow 

buoyed by thermals which cannot 
be caught any more than night 

can be snared. Night is a hawk 

with sharp eyes, perched, observant, 
the tender strength of talons, 

which slice flesh, caress an egg, 

its coarse nest lined with cedar, 
fragrant and woven to hold, 

whose tapered wings are folded 

and under whose wings I rest, 
between its down and cedar—

the softness of a shadow. 

Jonathan Yungkans

is a Los Angeles-based writer and photographer with an MFA from California State University, Long Beach. His work has appeared in San Pedro Poetry Review, Synkroniciti, West Texas Literary Review, Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and other publications. His second poetry chapbook, Beneath a Glazed Shimmer, won the 2019 Clockwise Chapbook Prize and was published in February 2021 by Tebor Bach.

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