ADVENT
ever green
who waits four
Sundays for
the end of
the year clear
brisk air of
night the moon
a small ball
in passing
empurpling
a stripe of
vaulted black
sky a wreath
of the sun’s
shadow light
reflection
of a star
you are dust
the dust you
tell yourself
of some dead
star staring
back to see
how far you
have fallen
Wendy Chin-Tanner is the author of Turn (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014), which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Awards. Some of her poems and essays can be found at The Collagist, The Rumpus, The Huffington Post, xoJane, RHINO, Denver Quarterly, and The Mays Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge. She is a founding editor at Kin Poetry Journal and poetry editor at The Nervous Breakdown.