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Taylor Graham
Autistic
You’re slumped motionless
in the corduroy rocker, eyes glazed
by sun or fog of a weather
I can’t know. And I wish you
all those words that used to flame
your mind, before the meds
tamed you. For the small bones
of your toes, I wish the dance
a child used to dream, still
waiting to be composed.
When you were young
you couldn’t stop running,
except to ask all the questions
no one could answer.
Now you’re a questionless
answer in upholstered corduroy.
I wish the itch of shocking yellow
across purple, how you used to
swash the paintbrush with fingers
wild to invent a world.
Futures
Just listen to the morning’s news.
I pull into Kmart for a light bulb --
A chilly day in March --
the world economy is dying.
I pull into Kmart for a light bulb,
find myself in the blooming garden shop.
The world economy is dying,
nothing but small hands reaching.
I find myself in the blooming garden shop
where nursery pots are a green surprise,
nothing but small hands reaching
for today’s young sun. I’m rich enough
where nursery pots are a green surprise,
a promise of peppers and tomatoes.
For today’s young sun, I’m rich enough
to spring for futures,
a promise of peppers and tomatoes
all through summer. The old lady behind me
springs for futures.
She’s in no hurry, her wrinkles smile.
All through summer the old lady behind me
could beam out of sunflowers.
She’s in no hurry, her wrinkles smile.
An old lady’s secret of gardens
could beam out of sunflowers.
A chilly day in March,
an old lady’s secret of gardens.
Just listen to the morning’s news.
©2009 by Taylor Graham
Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada.
Her poems have appeared in International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review,
The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review,
and elsewhere, and are included in the anthology, California Poetry: From
the Gold Rush to the Present
(Santa Clara University, 2004). Her book
The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006) was awarded
the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize.
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