water
—after “the way fingers know the keys starless night” by
Uncle Tommy died and Dad told me seven years later / another door he kept locked / to a room dark as a starless night / as if Tommy were still camped on our living room couch after coming back from Vietnam / don’t bug him Mom said / when he woke bolt-upright / sunlight peeking through a narrow gap in curtains that reminds me now me of a keyhole / of a crack in black glass that was silence / that could shatter at a touch / a breath / could slash like razors as pieces of it fell from the sky / Mom never shared Uncle Tommy’s letters from Vietnam / written on long yellow legal pads / as if together they could place those letters in green Spanãda bottles / narrow necks and round bodies / like the bottom half of an hourglass / and he could drive toward Palos Verdes / toward the rocky outcropping at Portuguese Bend that looked like a beached stone whale / hiking past sage scrub / toward the cliff edge at the furthest point out / and toss those bottles one by one out to sea / to wash up nowhere / literally throw away the place / the time / the night sky without stars he probably dreaded / not seeing / barely hearing what was coming /
or would there have been too much telltale glass at the bottom / out of tide’s reach / bottles exploding on impact / to a jangling sound / like keys falling out of reach / yellow pages / wilting as they dampened / pages that were keys for a door that would never be opened / good as blank / what I didn’t think about was water / turning another lock / until I read his obituary / and realized the obit was a paper scrap in the one green bottle that washed ashore / a scrap with the phrase / a follower of his Cherokee beliefs / and I remembered that he went late afternoons to the beach / to watch the deep-blue Pacific against a 24-karat sunset / and pictured Uncle Tommy waking on our couch / his mind like fingers in a pocket / feeling for and finding a key / by returning to water / bathing his psyche / the way Cherokee cleanse their bodies / a ritual / going to water / in the Cherokee saying we begin in water and we return to water / and so he returned / the smell of salt / washing away the mix of decaying leaves / humid greenery / jasmine / petrichor / as water takes everything
Poet’s Note
I had been working on a poem about Uncle Tommy and was having problems, even after workshopping a draft with the monthly poetry group I attend. Michelle Shaeffer’s monoku lent me both the direction and focus that was needed. For just over a year, I had been working on a series of poems inspired by these one-line wonders, partly to deal with the grief of losing my father in January 2025 and partly to open up about myself—to get to “the poem behind the poem,” as my workshop leader, Robin Axworthy, has reminded me from time to time—a principle I call “The Rule of Robin.” For all the monoku poets who’ve given me permission to cite and be inspired by their work, I remain deeply and truly thankful. The same goes for the Writers Club of Whittier, whose poetry workshop has become a personal safe-space both as a writer and as a person, and to Robin for additional feedback in the final shaping of this poem.
What Inspires You
I’m continually on the lookout for writing prompts from other people’s poems, newspaper articles, social media posts, fauxtire (fake news stories posted as satire). Managing a boarding house, cleaning other properties for the owner, crazy things that happen here or there—it’s all grist for the mill. Lately, I’ve been reading Bukowski’s poems in depth and appreciated how, in his better work, he could tell a layered, revealing take on human nature that, in other hands, could seem mundane or downright grungy.
Bio
Jonathan Yungkans continues to type when most people are still asleep. Skunks still crawl under his house, and he remains thankful when his work’s not as noxious as what emanates from beneath his bathroom’s floorboards. He has written three poetry chapbooks and one e-mini-chapbook. The latest, The Ravens Will Arrive Later, was released by Gnashing Teeth Press in March 2026.
Find the Spring 2026 Issue HERE
Previous NPM 2026 poets
| April 1 | Amy Forstadt |
| April 2 | Annette Sisson |
| April 3 | Beth Kanell |
| April 4 | Bonnie Proudfoot |
| April 5 | Charles Stringer |
| April 6 | D. Dina Friedman |
| April 7 | David Colodney |
| April 8 | Deanna Ludwin |
| April 9 | Eileen Pettycrew |
| April 10 | Felice Alexandra |
| April 11 | Grace Massey |
| April 12 | Hallie Fogarty |
| April 13 | Isabel Cristina Legarda |
| April 14 | Jon Yungkans |