Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our
Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our
Jim Daniels They watch the last dance —evening pomp turned into ragged romp—then shuffle out toward clumsy coats, the bride and groom long gone, the dj packing up. In the dim hallway they help each other into slack sleeves. They’re still visible amid the singular shadows of their quiet street—the groom, their neighbors’ youngest, the last boy on the entire block— and still in love nights like this, their backs leaning into each other as they laugh at someone else’s jokes. He opens the door for her as they step out into the dirty snow of the floodlit parking lot. No, they won’t make love tonight, nor snuggle like spoons, nor rattle like forks. Perhaps they will kiss before heading for their separate rooms. Exhausted from the long public night, they may forget. They danced one song—held each other’s hands as they spun like wobbly planets. Others made room for them as they had once made room for others. In the silence of their vows, the car drifts. 34 ◆ Crab Orchard Review
Chad Davidson Advent There’s a savageness to your sadness, as I’m sure there was for a scribe who loved illumination enough to suffer each flourish. December’s clockwork interlocks around a bookish sun as I watch you tend to the marginalia your hair makes around you. And though I’d like one to, no leaf throughout recorded history has ever rejoined its tree. The trees, for their part, shake their nightmares to the ground. True, the finality of calendars still startles us, caught in our own largesse. And it’s too easy to say language loves the most meager of feudal riches, December’s needles a compass mortuary. It would be the same to say each button on your down jacket is a rune waiting to be discovered, ruined, rediscovered, which to some scribe was reason enough for the opulence of a fossil moon. We might reinvent the moon as what our tragic fire aspires to be: a hole in all this sullied constancy. Because no fire can cleanse itself without first dying, which is why we utter warmth: not fire but the end of fire. Crab Orchard Review ◆ 35
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Chad Davidson<br />
Advent<br />
There’s a savageness to y<strong>our</strong> sadness,<br />
as I’m sure there was for a scribe<br />
who loved illumination enough to suffer<br />
each fl<strong>our</strong>ish. December’s clockwork<br />
interlocks around a bookish sun as I watch<br />
you tend to the marginalia y<strong>our</strong> hair makes<br />
around you. And though I’d like one to,<br />
no leaf throughout recorded history has ever<br />
rejoined its tree. The trees, for their part, shake<br />
their nightmares to the ground. True,<br />
the finality of calendars still startles us,<br />
caught in <strong>our</strong> own largesse. And it’s too easy<br />
to say language loves the most meager<br />
of feudal riches, December’s needles<br />
a compass mortuary. It would be the same<br />
to say each button on y<strong>our</strong> down jacket<br />
is a rune waiting to be discovered, ruined,<br />
rediscovered, which to some scribe<br />
was reason enough for the opulence<br />
of a fossil moon. We might reinvent the moon<br />
as what <strong>our</strong> tragic fire aspires to be: a hole<br />
in all this sullied constancy. Because no fire<br />
can cleanse itself without first dying,<br />
which is why we utter warmth: not fire<br />
but the end of fire.<br />
<strong>Crab</strong> <strong>Orchard</strong> <strong>Review</strong> ◆ 35
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