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Driver
The scent of anise stays,
where we’ve followed
the mass of feather-green crushed
under someone’s shoes. Look,
you see nothing but his truck
wrecked off the roadside,
and fading tracks that got him
this far, beyond the vacant lot
and out of sight of highway
frontage, where the river
between its sandbars
runs with everything away.
Pedestrian’s Nocturne
Up there above high-rise,
above the climax
of the airwaves,
way up there it’s quiet.
Down here, there’s hardly a tree
in this city-
scape a breeze could discover.
Little birds, little birds
shut your mouths
and eat your crumbs of bread.
Don’t mess on the sidewalk
or some customer
may shoot you dead.
Riddle
What's small and pink,
you ask, and right on schedule?
Could it be the rosy finch?
the mariposa lily? Bird or flower --
well, you'll say, they're much
too sentimental.
Something else
must come in pink: a pill, perhaps,
tiny, pink, and timed by doses:
some pharmaceutical to heal
our age-old vision faltering
till spring migrations,
wildflowers thrusting out of ash,
or one small fist
with all its wantings clenched
about transparent
fingernails.
Saturday Afternoon
The plaza’s full of fickle butterflies
yellow-orange and glassy-blue,
they won’t be here tomorrow.
One small boy goes running after them
to crash down
on skinned knees, a badge of venture
proved by bandaid stars.
Under brittle elm leaves
you’re thinking
of a little something
for later on,
a summary sweetness,
chocolate on the tongue
of evening.
Raccoons
Pansies, almost perfectly
ripe melon, a new
canvas barbecue cover
shredded: what our nighttime
guests selected without our leave.
We eye each form and fragment:
What heft or softness
begging claw, what fragrance
to a nosy nose and famished tooth.
Dragged into unaccustomed light
by masked revelers, and left
for ruined, useless to us now
except for the surprise
of morning.
Taylor Graham Coal City Review editor Brian Daldorph calls this poet " a meticulous wordsmith, writing often of her experiences as a rescue dog handler.
Every word of each poem is carefully considered, and yet there is fluency and grace to her poems that sometimes seem like the mysterious
language of bird tracks in the snow. Taylor helps us to remember our links with the natural world." Graham has published four collections,
including Casualties ( Coal City Review) and Looking for Lost ( Hot Pepper Press), as well as poems in myriad publications. She is also
on the editorial board of The Acorn, a regional literary journal focusing on the western Sierra.
("Ten Poets to Watch", Writer's Digest April 2000)
Email: Taylor Graham
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