2 Poems by
Taylor Graham
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DUFFY'S BAR & GRILL
She doesn't even try for tips
anymore, or pitches, just pulls on
some kind of old pink knit that rides
up her back when she stoops
to pick up a fork somebody dropped.
There's only this single
party at table 2, come for the special
that didn't draw a crowd
tonight, and all that prime meat
going to waste.
There are other places
down the road with upscale names,
Chez Cerise or The Saffron Frog.
The cook, the guy she might have
worn the tight jeans for, has done
this party's steaks just right. But
that won't pay for anything,
not the grill, the half-
lights, the failing evening, not
even the experienced
pink sweater.
HER LATEST
"Society prepares the crime; the criminal
commits it." She puts down her pen.
It doesn't fit. Politically correct.
The best murder happens in a country
churchyard, worlds away under a sliver moon.
Hoofbeats punctuate and muffle motives.
Out the window, a half-moon rises
over a toothed skyline where neon glows
blood-red on storefronts. One clue
is a shopping cart aground against an ATM.
If someone's life runs out in an alleyway
is there any plot past brick and drying mud?
Tonight the slashed moon glints against
slums and strip-malls, an avenue ablaze
with banks. It skims evidence ash'ed
in a dumpster; strikes aslant a door
where someone with blue-black lids
is about to die for shabby reasons.
Along the river, lovers on a park bench
in the dark miss everything in each
other's eyes. She'll write how the next
full moon brings them something they never
expected on this one enchanted evening.
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