Gary Thomas

Widow’s Weeds

Drunk on tawny port,
face down in the canal,

only a foot deep and he drowned, 
the bastard, and I loved him

and I guess I have to do that some more,
but I’m getting outta this valley,

go anywhere that doesn’t require irrigation,
no place that knows about such awful wine——

the Israeli desert, maybe,
a high-rise with a rotating restaurant,

a town with a new agenda
full of men with some sense

and a healthy fear of water,
where I can wear basic black

and lavender.

Gary Thomas grew up on a peach farm outside Empire, California. Prior to retirement, he taught eighth-grade language arts for thirty-one years and junior college English for seven. He has presented poetry workshops for literary organizations, festivals, and conferences. His poems have been published or accepted for publication in The Comstock Review, MockingHeart Review, Monterey Poetry Review, and River Heron Review, among others, and in the anthology More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets.  He is currently vice president of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, a member of the Curriculum Study Commission, and of the local writing group known as The Licensed Fools. A full-length collection, All the Connecting Lights, was released in August 2022 from Finishing Line Press.