June 2022
Jonathan Yungkans
jonyungk@yahoo.com
Author's Note: I wrote the attached duplex initially under a different form and name. This version hews closer to the core of isolation in light of Covid, even with mask restrictions having become looser. Ashbery's "A Tone Poem," from which the new title was taken, seems to sum up the point a little better, as well: "It is no longer night. But there is a sameness / Of intention, all the same, in the ways / We address it, rude / Color of what an amazing world, / As it goes flat, or rubs off, and this / Is a marvel, we think, and are careful not to go past it." The same passage could also hold true for "Rincon," subtly pushing the envelope while also seeming to respect its boundaries.

Duplex: But There Is a Sameness of Intention

First time eating outside in a year.
Mask back on and a Thank You trumpets—

          a Thank You sharp enough to slit my throat.
          Makes me stay masked statue on a pedestal.

Masked statues keep their breath to themselves.
They bat no eye when April’s brazen and cruel.

          April’s crueler this year. Climate’s broiling.
          Contagion hits the fan, hits the atmosphere.

It hits the air like gulls through a propeller,
corkscrewing shredded in the prop wash—

          a spiraling prop wash through consciousness 
          which spreads me to the four winds, hemorrhaging—

midair and clueless whether in climb or fall.
First time eating outside in a year.

1  Title taken from “A Tone Poem” by John Ashbery, in the collection As We Know.

An earlier version of this poem, under a different title, appeared in Verse-Virtual, May 2021

Rincon Point, Six A.M.

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

or 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.
Originally published in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Issue 7 (March 2021)
©2022 Jonathan Yungkans
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