An Anagram on Vanity

Displayed on a six by twelve metal plate

Raised red letters scribe my name in block text—

PAM—trailing the d, r and period. Perhaps it is

A holdover from my Hollywood days, this type of vanity.

Most folks ’round here are down home, ain’t

Trying to be fancy or flashy or wave

Advanced degrees like Old Glory, mutter those damn

Yankees think they better, but always curious,

Look to see who’s at the wheel, roar their F150

Oversized engines and saddle alongside my car to peer

Right into this brown girl’s smile.

~Pamela Taylor © 2013

The Secret of Saturn

What is it about you

that drives men mad

building spacecraft

to traverse the impossible

space of this universe

just to be close enough

to read your wavelengths,

to reach through magnetic

fields and swirling dust

that shroud you in mystery,

to glimpse the heat rising

from pole to pole—the source

of your power, your storms—

and hope your light bursts forth?

~Pamela Taylor © 2013

Lessons in Virtue

~for Liana

Today you learned courage

as you slid down the 10^th grade

hall to geometry class and back

to the principal’s office to retrieve

your forgotten shoes, the cold

plastic floor burning a hole

through patterned socks.

Today you learned restraint,

to show the sullen, pale face

of teenage nonchalance, to bury

shame behind a care-less shrug

as the bite of that told-you-a-million-

times scolding bore into you.

You have yet to learn about prudence

or planning ahead or rows of shoes

on racks by the front door or why

adults make you feel wrong

when they are right.

But this will teach you

the emptiness of justice,

the absence of your mother’s

charity, faith, and love.

~Pamela L. Taylor © 2013

When Doubts Creep In

You sit

in that chair—

a still life

a life still—

staring

into the black

of yourself.

Are you stuck

or have you

stopped

believing you can

tilt the world

on its axis

with your right

pinky toe

and soar?

~Pamela L. Taylor © 2013

Ladybugs in November

They shelter indoors, break in through

uncaulked cracks in windows, searching

of a warm place for their last days.

At first, these tiny prowlers crawl along crown

molding or buzz against the rim

of the pendant light in the dining room.

Sometimes I glimpse them in mid-flight,

spotted domes spread, thin brown wings

soaring on the last heated air of the season.

Soon they’ll appear at eye level, teetering

along bathroom walls and mirrors in haphazard

circles like the town drunk you can’t send home.

When the nights dip toward freezing, I pretend

not to see them clinging to the back splash

or creeping below on vanity doors, bright

against the stark white of cabinets.

Why must I gather upturned bodies,

return their abandoned shells to dust?

~ Pamela Taylor © 2013

Feeding Swans

I am first to arrive at the house of a stranger who has roasted

a chicken, pureed kale and apples into a smoothie

and set the round table with three porcelain plates rimmed

with blue for this supervised lunch date.

We sit across from each other on the last warm

day in autumn. The tree above the wrought iron

gazebo drops its small seeds around us. I don’t know

the name of this tree and wonder what that says about me.

He’s uncomfortable with the position of the fire—

the way the wind whips the smoke into our faces.

I’m too busy trying to be good enough to notice. He wants

to start eating and I want to wait for our friend to arrive.

I need this chaparoned conversation to work

because I haven’t  done well on my own and I’m too old

to start spending my nights strolling the chain of downtown

bars trying to score free drinks from fat wallets.

Once I read a story about Gautami, a poor village girl who lived

to submit and obey. The prince took her as a concubine

and the son she bore rejected her, but Gautami found happiness

in a hut and the duty of feeding the palace swans.

If only my life were that simple.

If only.

~Pamela L. Taylor © 2013

The truth is we don’t know

what you are or how you do

what you do—fill the space

behind the light, be everything

we don’t see and can’t help

but feel. Bright minds seek

to unmask your mass, contain

your essence within elaborate

calculations like a pet canary.

But the universe is no gilded cage

and human genius is no match

for a force greater than gravity.

I am content with your mystery, to know

you are (everywhere, always, around)—me.

~Pamela L. Taylor © 2013

Sleep, My Dear

You were my first taste of love,

adored before these lips knew how

to suckle sweet milk from the breast.

Last night you crept home past

midnight and I shivered against your cool

breath. You’re more distant than Pluto,

as unpredictable as those quakes that split

the earth. The long-cold nights stretch endless

and I stare wide-eyed into the unquiet

darkness, wild thoughts my only company. I want

to go back to those evenings when the smooth

of my cheek met your caress and my body

exhaled next to you, to those rested

mornings when my eyes blinked

away the sweet remnants of dreams.

Lover, come back to our bed.

~Pamela L. Taylor © 2013

Evening Calls

And just like that

you appeared below

the sickle of moon

and Venus,

that dark goddess

of evening.

What type of

fickle magic

conjured

this Adonis

among men—

his rugged frame,

distant eyes and hollow

voice that shakes the owl

from slumber calling

who, who, who?

~ Pamela Taylor © 2013

In Autumn, While You Lay Dying

This poem has been published in the Fall 2013 Issue of When Women Waken (Theme: Grief).