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"Before I Go"

tymesynk

I want to say the guacamole was pleasant,
metallic and viscous, and the ornamentation,
while excessive, contributed a certain vagueness
to the otherwise overly-managed event. For instance,
the various proposals concerning the movement
of shoulders and hips; the recent prohibition
of leaning-beside-the-punch-bowl; the manic outbursts
of praise near the X-mas tree. For that matter,
the damaging claims made by carolers, the rigid order
for the revelation of gifts, the marked lack of scholarship
concerning holiday rituals, the call for more endnotes,
the codified nutmeg ritual that lost all spontaneity
with the addition of fiber masks and surgical gloves,
though our hostess’s eyes flashed dramatically
after the sanitary draping of nose and mouth.
The gifts, while paltry and too hastily wrapped,
were a welcome addition to the festivities.
I want to say your ardor, however manufactured,
was appreciated. I want to say I will place this lovely
figurine in a place of honor. Did I mention
the fervor, the panicked caterwauling in the coat room?
The vestments lifted, each in their turn, and displayed
briefly like unwanted kittens discovered
in the back hall closet. The squalling, the convulsive
laughter, the demeaning appraisals were, it’s true,
uncalled for, but the garments were—how to
characterize them? For amongst the dull tweeds
and camel hairs were the sudden flights
of “wearable art,” the cheery pastels,
the loopings and frayings—these were the cries
of those grown brazen with death’s approach,
certain that something needed expressing
though uncertain what it was and who
it might be that would do the expressing.
If our endorsements seem overly energetic,
if our enthusiasms trend to the mawkish,
know that we are credentialed by these garments,
sponsored by the darkness leaning its black fur
against the windows. Every departure is fraught,
each leave-taking tragic, now that the snow has begun,
lovely in its erasures, its glittering whiteness
a miracle, so coherent and so meaningless.

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Credit IAIA.edu
Jon Davis

Jon Davis is the author of Preliminary Report (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), Scrimmage of Appetite (University of Akron Press, 1995), and Dangerous Amusements (Ontario Review Press, 1987). He is founder and director of the MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he has taught since 1990.

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