Taylor Graham Poems

Between a mossy outcrop
and a bedrock mortar.
I watch a neighbor’s wood-smoke rise
toward the contrail
...

She takes the lead with unaccustomed
spryness, remembering this route
through sagebrush, bitterbrush,
mules-ears drying like so many summers
...

Her wedding picture’s with the recipes
for meatloaf. Months before Mother died
she saved this lock, but kept unmatching keys.
...

The tooth fairy in her necklace
of teeth, and tooth earrings
and a gown as shimmery as spit,
takes them from underneath
...

The day begins with a speckled fawn
in the swale;
and then, five swallows —
one of them fledged from your hand.
...

I was sleeping when they came.
I slept in the savor of pot roast,
the woolish warmth of wood-stove,
and the long night’s moon measuring
...

Yosemite Valley

Granite walls sing their own music, if you could hear it.
Perhaps it’s written on the staff of contour lines
...

We cup our hands around the possibility
of fire. Frost has nipped our ankles, touched a hunger
at the dug-up root. Headless roses can’t explain
...

The boy without eyeglasses
stumbles over his father’s thrift.
He might be a fool dancing
out of wildwood,
...

No matter how good you try to be,
you’re bound to be subpoenaed
sometime, for something.
...