| Jacaranda Poem by Taylor Graham Published in Lily, August, 2006 We agree on this, it’s never been so gray. The sky won’t rain. The concrete entrance drive, the stucco portico. In the wings, old people kept from dying. We’ve got a hundred papers to sign. We’re at a loss for florid verse. And yet, when no one’s listening, we beg each other for a word. Out the window a jacaranda – exotic tree with extravagant cerulean blooms in summer – droops its winter- feathered leaves. Imagine her in blue boas, flamenco on a breeze. Imagine so we can’t forget. At the tip of every twig a castanet. First published in The Downstairs Dance Floor, 2005 winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. •••••
Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and also helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in America, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, and elsewhere, and she’s included in the anthology California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University, 2004). Her newest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), is winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. Her website is http://somersetsunset.net |