Nightbreak
Nighttime will be a different story. The brightness of Betelgeuse’s supernova is about the same as the quarter moon. -Jillian Scudder
Snow creaked on the dead end of our block
and you turned your icy chin up
to the burst shoulder of Orion, swelling
like a single advancing headlight. I pass
the backs of two fingers over your goosebumps.
Talk, small or measured in stars, fails me.
We placed bets on which night would be brightest—
the half-light on our sills, the dogs rising
already for their morning walk.
Think of when you told me you hated space
and its large smugness: a fat-fingered kid bragging
her toys were better.
To matter, a thing should be touchable.
But a drain was poked in the sky, six hundred forty lightyears
from us. I hoped it would take the cold with it,
thaw the back stream so even salamanders
would splash up to their pockmarked rocks.
Jim Moore-Ryan is a writer, carpenter, and SUNY Geneseo alum. He graduated in 2014, and has fond memories of his experience as one of the founding editors of Gandy Dancer. He was excited to be part of the experiment at the beginning, working with Professor Hall and his classmates, and making several trips to the basement of Milne Library to learn about what needed to happen behind the scenes to make the gears of this cool publication turn.