Thirst is a hoax.
If you make it across the desert
in the shadow of your skin

and put on camouflage,
you can work all day in the sun
for less than a wage.

Don’t dare put down the shovel,
the loppers, the rake
for a swig of cola from a can

you can’t afford,
it would take sweet milk
right out of the starving mouths

of your twin babes, those
two-month old
citizens. For them

you can weed and prune and water
these mosaic gardens
where a courteous clink

of glasses drifts
from a champagne luncheon
on the lawn.

You can cup your hands
under the faucet
without drinking your fill.

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Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, and she’s included in the anthology California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University). Her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), is winner of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize.
E-mail: piper at innercite dot com
Website: http://somersetsunset.net/Poetry.htm

 

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summer 2007 | kaleidowhirl
books and chapbooks from authors in this issue