The window closing, or opening. 
Sparrows do not sing till ravens caw for light 

	in the corvid-dark verge of daybreak. Sparrows 
	tremble branches brittle as spun glass as 

walking wobbly I scatter millet, long arms 
gangly, head somnolent, offer prayer in 

	awkwardly-served breakfast, seeds of confession. 
	A repeated word rings amen, an all-clear 

alert and rusty dinner bell. The birds wait 
for my recessional. When a door closes, 

	I’d hear on Sundays, God opens a window. 
	Sometimes birds fly into one, not expecting 

glassine judgment. They wait for my door to shut 
before making most of an open window. 

*Poet’s Note:

The first line is from the poem “The Empirical” in Cynthia Hogue’s collection Or Consequence (Red Hen Press, 2010).

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.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Le Grand Matin by Jonathan Yungkans, a Finalist in MacQ’s Triple-Q Writing Challenge (Issue 11, January 2022)

⚡ La Porte by Yungkans in MacQ’s special Christmas Eve issue (10X, December 2021)

⚡ Two Duplex Poems, plus author’s notes on the poems and on the form, by Yungkans in Issue 10 of MacQ (October 2021)

⚡ Lawful and Proper, poem in Rise Up Review (Fall 2020)

⚡ Cadralor in the Key of F-Sharp as It Cuts into My Spine, in the inaugural issue of Gleam (Fall 2020)

⚡ I’d Love to Cook Like Hannibal Lecter [video], read by the poet at an event sponsored by Moon Tide Press (10 October 2019) celebrating the anthology Dark Ink: A Poetry Anthology Inspired by Horror

⚡ Saving the Patient, poem in The Voices Project (18 January 2018)