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After Dinner
You could be sitting in the famished
armchair under a lamp, and pick up
a book at random, and open it
to any page of so many ordered words
and sentences, someone else's crafted
arguments, when a folded sheet
of paper falls from the book.
An absolutely empty sheet
marking a place between cramped
pages, waiting all this time
for your pen to find its first
word. Of so many.
Considering the Inaugural Poem
You might mention how we stay together
by fighting. Guns against buffalo
so many dug graves and grading, not
to the bloody war. Two brothers, when
could they ever in their lives agree?
and sure as death, it won't be on blue
vs gray. Families do the cemetery walk
and lay down flowers that cost a lot
and never fix anything. Monday
in the barber's chair we bicker over
this morning's news. Political signs
bloom like red and blue perennials.
Can we just call it potluck, bring
your favorite casserole or concealed
weapon. It's sure to bring us all
together once again, on one side
or the other.
Punctuation
You haven't come yet to the dot
which might be a period marking
the end of the sentence a spot
of black ink (, dot with a quaver
of indecision) so many dotted i's
in a letter full of so many
letters in large & lesser cases
that come to an end dot
after the crossed intersections
the dashing & dotted center-
lines oncoming from so many
directions leading away to
a point vanishing to
nothing but a dot.
Taylor Graham
Email: Taylor Graham
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