Monthly Archives: February 2023

Like a Thief in the Night


I once rode out of a Tatra valley 
on a horse-pulled wagon 
with a priest who joked of God 
all the way to the Krakow train 
on which I’d be robbed 
of what little I owned 
by an old woman who promised
to pray for my soul. 

I do wish that priest had told me 
a little something of the meaning 
of just one of those peaks, 
which I’d photographed with my soon-to-be 
stolen camera, so sure of their importance.

Now I hear on the radio the Tatras 
are no more. 

They’ve changed their magnificent minds
about being mountains – got clear out
of the business – and were last seen 
swimming in the Caspian Sea 

which itself has a famously precarious
grip on reality.

At least, the priest and I have stayed in touch. 
He has written to say he’s been defrocked 
and spends his days mining fool’s gold 
from California rocks.

PS, he adds, the Lord is coming
like a thief in the night. 

Paul Jaskunas is the author of the novel Hidden (Free Press) and a novella forthcoming in 2024 from Stillhouse Press. His fiction, poetry, and journalism have appeared in numerous periodicals, including the New York Times, America, Tab, the Windhover, the Amethyst Review, and the Comstock Review. He teaches literature and writing at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he edits the art journal Full Bleed.

Green Pearls


When illness stills you, and worry weights 
your limbs—when you rub your eyes to wake up

and the rose light of evening slants
across the dusty table—you take a walk, 

but the neighborhood is empty—even the birds
have flown, taking with them the furnishings 

of sound that make the world inhabitable.  
You remember Midwest autumns—how herds

of maple leaves skittered across the blacktop. 
Nestled among tree trunks and leafless shrubs,

they found their place of winter rest.
You, too, hurry down the driveway, brittle

as the dried husk of a seed pod.  But within you—
green pearls in a frail shell. 

Daniel Thomas’s second collection of poetry, Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn, was published in 2022. His first collection, Deep Pockets, won a 2018 Catholic Press Award. He has published poems in many journals, including Southern Poetry Review, Nimrod, Poetry Ireland Review, The Bitter Oleander, Atlanta Review, and others.  More info at danielthomaspoetry.com.