Orchard 
by Jeremy Radin

​​Yes, I admit, I’ve imagined us married. In the orchard,
beside one another, gathering up the ready fruit. & see, see— 
 
there is our hutch for the rabbits. & look up! Our favorite
instance of sky. A mutt at our heels, & spring arriving,
 
shy. I admit I’ve imagined a first dance & Lord, is it slow— 
a tern rocking on a branch of wind; how a train starts out
 
of the station & you cannot tell what is moving. What is
moving? Not a list—what is moving itself? What is the act?
 
I have seen you do it now & am certain I have my whole life
been lied to. Bewildering waltzer, we have strolled in crape
 
myrtle, laughed beneath a canopy of lamps, bent bouquets
of cabernet into camellias & adorned each others’ hair.
 
O that such a thing can even be conceived of after the long
ceremony that is not a ceremony, the rituals of disappearance,
 
the leaning away from the nourishments of touch, the bright
boredoms, dark devotions, the betrayals, the slick loss, the panic
 
of fathers & remoteness of mothers, men with nitroglycerine in
their teeth, women who turn away & away, & we could only imagine
 
making love while holding our breath. Who can say
if it will happen, but praise in us both what has opened
 
toward such a conceivable tenderness as this, that lets us love
regardless, the future an orchard I walk beside you, my possible,
 
my dazzling companion, who knows as well as I do that this
cannot end, so I pause here only to put down my pen, & seeing
 
how much fruit you have gathered, thank you,
& offer my hands.

---

Jeremy Radin is a poet, actor, and teacher. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Gulf Coast, The Cortland Review, The Journal, Cosmonauts Avenue, Vinyl, Passages North, Tinderbox, wildness, and elsewhere. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Slow Dance with Sasquatch (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012) and Dear Sal (not a cult press, 2017). He lives in Los Angeles where he once sat next to Carly Rae Jepsen in a restaurant. Follow him @germyradin

---