Ex-Presidents under awnings
at the sidewalk café ­ not dead
Presidents, the ones with coins minted
from their faces; nor Commanders-
in-Chief lain stiff so long,
they’re decorated with postage-
stamp epaulets.
No, these are the less-
than-dead, the ones whose order
the waiter doesn’t even try
to remember.

You know their faces, you’ve heard
their voices interminably melli-
fluent on TV. That one ­
with the Botox jowls allowed, at last,
to slip ­ wants nothing more,
this sunny Tuesday, than an iced
cappuccino.

But we are no ancient culture
honoring its has-beens.
The wait-staff
is more gainfully employed.
These guys have nowhere left
to go.

Our Great Numbers

While I sleep, the nations gather ­
not by Noah’s shy pairs
but in a blindness of birthings
post-Flood
so many of us seeking dry land
through
oh the warrens of war: the Roses,
the Thirty Years, a landslide of lans-
quenets leveling the countryside.
The First World, and then
the Second, a savage of soldiers
set against its opposites,
and afterwards the quell
we call quiet,
a soundless explosion
of poppies in the fields

lulling us, we think, to peace.
And even then. Here and there,
the invasion of a tribe
of influenzas. Consumption.
Oh, a commune
of cancers in their cells
hurrying to find our space.
Every day more of us discovering
new ways to procreate
and die. Auto-
wrecks
and a plumage of plane-
crashes
white-flame across our common sky
we could almost
call beautiful.
This hemorrhage
of humans on a once-flooded
ever-more inundated
only partially solid earth.

A Nice Chap

A nice chap, they say at meeting.
They know his speechless wife
at potluck supper, who always brings
lasagna without a hint of oregano
or thyme. They’ve seen his son
at school sitting silent
as if an eraser had passed
across his mouth.
His dog knows better
than to bark.

They don’t hear
how sometimes his voice goes
high and feral. They don’t see
his daughter with a blotched face
and arms. A proper man, they say
at meeting. A good clean-
shaven citizen with a god-fearing
family. How they sit
bowed with folded hands.

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 focussing on the western Sierra. ("Ten Poets to Watch", Writer's Digest April 2000)

Email: Taylor Graham

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