The Leaf-Fall Moon tonight is full,
the color of a pale candle
without its flame,
waiting for a match.

Nature mimics every mind-set –
the unforgiven, the idea waxing
in the window-sill.
The cat purrs black.

Can memory soften what grows
in the moon’s sharp negative?
An x-ray pinned
with a blunt tack.

Rocks surface in the pasture,
the earth’s hard secret
like a thorn in flesh.
Fissures and cracks.

Sun will slash into darkness,
I’ll call it dawn, and
no matter how well I slept,
get up and pack.  

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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 The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, and elsewhere, and she's included in the new anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present.
E-mail: piper at innercite dot com
Website: http://somersetsunset.net/Poetry.htm  

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