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.
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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