Soon I’ll have no shadow left
to throw.
As he stirs, I wonder who,
what I am tonight.
Air gun in hand, he goes pyew pyew
at Mom, mutters
I’m gonna kill, then glares my way—
Fix your eyes
when I’m talking to you, boy.
He snaps
at my glasses and we find
each other
for a moment. His hawkish blues
return to glass
and I kiss his forehead in the dark.
Zach Thomas is a writer from Richmond, Virginia. When not teaching college English, he writes poetry sparked from various locations in Appalachia, the American South, and Latin America. These poems tend to revisit grief, loss, and other topics that he realizes are hardly uplifting.