Lee Colin Thomas, a finalist in Narrative’s Thirteenth and Eleventh Annual Poetry Contests, is a poet, communications consultant, and university instructor. A graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and the University of Minnesota, he is the author of Honey in the Dark (Brighthorse, 2021). He lives in Minneapolis.

Late Summer

by Lee Colin Thomas

Tonight’s moon has dropped its shawl.
                        I’m in the yard again, waiting

for the air to crawl out from under the ferns
                        where it has been hiding


all day, cheek to mud.
                        This communion with stillness,


a simple arrangement
                        for the willing—


Want nothing, and the dark
                        will lessen the distance


between your body and its own
                        as a rabbit sometimes will


when hungry or untroubled enough
                        to come very close,


herald from some quieter place
                        breathing beside us.


Read on . . .

“Cooking Pasta for My Parents,” a poem by Lee Colin Thomas