Three Poems by Taylor Graham

A HOUSEHOLD TALE

 

“It was meant to be,” we say, when

on a common Wednesday, we're driving

into unknown territory,

 

we don't know what off-ramp or

where to go from there, but 

somehow we end up at the address. 

 

The promised princess - 

purebred, puppy of royal Russian lines - 

appears a beast.

 

Well, you've heard the story before, 

it's in all the fairy cautionary 

tales. A mischief 

 

sneaks through your door, past good sense.

Nothing as it seems,

it's all enchantment, or disguise.

 

Better judgment gives way to 

“it was meant to be.” 

This is how she came here. 

 

I call her name 

and she puts her teeth away, 

remembering a month of instruction, 

 

and licks my hand. 

I look into deep brown puppy-eyes 

that read my mind. It was meant to be.

 

LOST YEARS

 

This first hot day of summer

Henry wandered off alone, as if thinking

of summers with dogs gone by.

 

I caught the new puppy by her collar, 

attached a long-lead. “Track 

him!” - something I never taught her. 

 

But she's nose to the ground, 

and off we go, up the gravel path, across 

blister-blacktop to a chain-link fence; 

 

a gate - it swings open to a kindergarten 

play-yard; toys of all colors

scattered on the ground. And there 

 

old Henry's wandering between jungle-

gym and swings as if searching 

for his childhood. And licking his wrinkled

 

hand, my pup, pupil in the elementary 

school of scent. 

Of searching what's lost; of finding.

 

FIBERGLASS LIFE FORMS

after earthquake

 

Under the broken entry, a human figure

sprawls - long dark tresses starred

with shattered glass. 

 

Red dress, silk stockings with a seam; 

red spike heels

scattered among beads. 

 

Avenue blocked by rubble. Streetlamp 

that ought to be lit by now, but 

isn't, on this evening after earthquake. 

 

My search dog walks right by the fallen lady. 

I bend down to check - she's a 

mannequin, wig askew on bald synthetic head. 

 

My dog is looking for real people. 

I switch on my flashlight, 

follow her inside to darker dark.

 

 

 

Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada. She's included in the anthologies Villanelles (Everyman's Library) and California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present. Her book What the Wind Says, poems about living with her canine search partners, is due out later this year.