Jesuit School Fountain Ravens

By JOHN DAVIS JR.

Some descended from the arms
of our chapel cross, while lower
brothers abandoned statues
to bathe and drink at the heart
of our campus. Here, this flock
is no congress, no murder—
too innocent for such names.

Playful as cardinals, they splash
and sing on the lip of a bowl
overflowing. A great gather
of lustrous, fluffing feathers,
others could mistake them for ducks
or sleeker geese throwing water
in joyful, wing-beating triumph.

No longer ominous, they
foreshadow glee and liberty
of a coming summer when
students less uniform arrange
themselves into carefree circles
of chatter and rough-house, unbound
from studies’ dark gravity.

 

John Davis Jr. is the author of The Places That Hold, Middle Class American Proverb, and three other poetry collections. His work has appeared in Nashville Review, Tampa Review, Salvation South, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA and teaches English in Tampa, Florida.

[Purchase Issue 27 here.] 

Jesuit School Fountain Ravens

Related Posts

Mantra 5

KRIKOR BELEDIAN
from channel to channel / the lengthening beauty of shadows that float and bow down / and suck at the stones and planks / of the damp, bitter fog / of loneliness, / stone horses let loose their golden neighs / and the waters transform to / stained glass

Book cover of Concerning the Angels by Rafael Alberti

January 2025 Poetry Feature #2: Rafael Alberti in Translation

RAFAEL ALBERTI
Who are you, tell us, who do not remember you / from earth or from heaven? // Your shadow—tell us—is from what space? / What light, say it, has reached / into our realm? // Where do you come from, tell us, / shadow without words, / that we don’t remember you?

The Old Current Book Cover

January 2025 Poetry Feature #1: Brad Leithauser

BRAD LEITHAUSER
I’m twenty-seven, maybe too old to be / Upended by this, the manifold / Foreignness of it all, the fulfilling / Queer grandeur of it all, // But we each come into ourselves / As each can, in our own / Unmetered time (our own sweet way), / And for me this day’s more thrilling