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GRANDMA DAWSON’S GIRLS

Of the hottest she chose
the hottest: chiles
that made her Texas Ranger
blanch, come up for air, “Oh yes!
That’s almost
hot enough.”

He’d kiss her on the mouth,
his lips burned through. Seeds
from that same chile
chosen above all others
down generations of a hot
west Texas garden:

that heart-shaped pepper hung
till it was red as Texas blood.
Just waved across the pot
it drew such piquancy to a stew
so you could hardly eat it,
so you fell in love
with hot.

Down generations
the Dawson girls
could hardly find young men
that weren’t too mild
to marry.

“Grandma Dawson’s Girls” first appeared in Poet News (1991)

CHANCES

These are the birds who nest
in our chimneys,
bundling combustibles
where the draft
sucks flame. Or,
in a ramshackle weave
of sticks and string,
hang their breakable young
on a high thin twig
over nothing.
And if the birdlings grow
to any weight and feather,
they show them, by flapping
of parent wings,
one has only to outstep the edge
to fly.

“Chances” first appeared in Confrontation (1990)

CLASSIFIEDS

Muse for Hire: F/T, P/T. Handy w/ metaphor & meter,
skilled at circuitry & the occasional structural plumbing
and flying buttress. Fluent in infinite languages, incl Post-
modern, Mineral, Old-Dog, Rap, Wail & Atmospheric.
Felicitous w/phrasing. Can adapt to extreme living
conditions, even hands -&-knees dirt-labor & those
unanswerable heavenward fists full of questions. Will
work for 1 good poem per inspiration. Rhymes extra.
To contact, touch pen-tip to blank sheet of paper.

ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN SHORT HOPS

The old dog can not contain himself, going home.
From 30,000 ft his nose has tried to map
a continent through the fuselage: Sacramento
to O’Hare, layover, then on at altitude
to Maine. He’s imagined every layered wind,
the scents below that blow and eddy, that lift
to buck a mountaintop and catch the stream.

But over years, he’s also grown attached
to earth: his three legs planted
so the fourth can hoist
against tree-bark, marking his own
territory. He’s learned about roots
and bones and digging in.

Now comes the time that we’re retracing
time-zones. He remembers all those smells
backwards. His heart is ready to go home.
But the pull of these familiar rooted trees!
As well, his aging sphincters bid us pause.

We think he’ll never hold it to Chicago.
So we fly commuter whistle-stop to a wind-
blown tarmac beside this skinny
dirt-scraped strip of ground. Here
he sorts out scents until he finds the
just-right place; and he salutes
this patch of soil that’s parched
for praise.

WHEN THE 1st SEED CATALOG COMES

All winter
we burn trash on the garden,
accumulating ashes:
old magazines, drafts of letters,
cereal boxes, packaging.
The compost pile
gets egg shells, potato peelings,
piths and rinds and coffee grounds.
One dead squirrel the dogs delivered
home.

Spring is that
simple day
we turn things under:
soil so rich and brown
we forget what makes it sweet
and speak of seeds
as a beginning.

“When the 1st Seed Catalog Comes”
first appeared in Inlet (1990).

© All Copyright, Taylor Graham.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.