The sea tears out of its skin, 
a Lazarus deshrouding, 

navy against an orange 
sunrise. Surfers play Jesus, 

waiting for a wave to let 
them walk on water. No one 

talks—words hover like gulls, pick 
away silence’s magic—


*


so I say nothing and watch 
their bobbing devotionals, 

notice an imprint of huge 
feathers in wet sand. Christmas 

was last month. Easter’s three away. 
So what’s an angel to do 

with down time except to lie 
invisible on the sand, 


*


arching like a cat, a wave, 
intending neither to leave 

nor stay, to leave or erase 
its mark. The blueness reaches 

deeper than bone or sea bed, 
thicker than water, dredging 

to leave what it can on shore 
in a shush and quietude. 

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

⚡ Lawful and Proper, poem by Jonathan Yungkans 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)