May 2017
David Graham
grahamd@ripon.edu
A native of Johnstown, NY, I retired in June 2016 after 29 years of teaching writing and literature at Ripon College in Wisconsin.  I've published six collections of poetry, including Stutter Monk and Second Wind; I also co-edited (with Kate Sontag) the essay anthology After Confession: Poetry as Confession.  Essays, reviews, and individual poems have appeared widely, both in print and online.  In recent years I've spent nearly as much time on photography as poetry.  A gallery of my work is online here: http://instagram.com/doctorjazz​​

Scotch Movies
 
 
I like to see the old couple sitting
in their garage right on Route 23
with the door up, facing traffic
on a warm June day, newspaper unread,
 
as if we were the interesting ones
in our dog-to-the-vet station wagons,
our UPS vans so faithfully frantic,
first-gear dumptrucks groaning with gravel,
 
when the Mystery itself
has set up its twin folding chairs
in the dusky, oil-scented air,
iced tea slowly warming on a card table
 
between them, maybe a radio on soft
in the empty kitchen behind.  I like
to believe they speak at long intervals
about how the tomatoes are doing,
 
heat beginning to ripple the haze
over the highway, through which we plunge
with our designer coffee, our kids in car seats,
clutch of DVDs to return to the store
 
where they have never been, our couple
nodding like trees at the edge of the wind.

(first published in Poet’s Corner, 1999)
 


Tim
 

These faded little towns you drive through
in Georgia, Ohio, Minnesota, the hills
of western Pennsylvania, upstate New York--
 
every one looks about the same to you
with its seedy auto body shop, full graveyard,
its three churches and seven bars,
 
not to mention the shuttered department store,
big old houses that’ve seen better days,
and vacant lots where something or other
 
burned down years ago but the scent
of soot still rises after every rain or snow.
But you know if you just coasted to a stop
 
in front of the 7-Eleven, got out of your
car and strolled the three-block
Main Street, you’d begin to notice things.
 
Three-legged white cat scampering up
some porch steps.  The sign over the River
View Diner, when light hits it just so,
 
revealing it used to be The Majestic.
Skinny boy in his driveway practicing
layups—most beautiful shots you’ve ever seen.
 
Then some guy with the name of Tim
embroidered in red on his work shirt
looking and looking at you in the Walgreen’s
 
where you’ve stopped for some aspirin
and a soda.  He’s staring so hard because
surely you remind him of someone
 
he went to school with, but hasn’t seen
in forty-five years—moved to Texas, he
heard, but after all this time, who knows?
 
He’s trying to decide whether or not to
greet you with your old name, while
you ponder whether or not you’ll accept it,
 
or just shake your head and turn away. 
©2017 David Graham
Editor's Note:  If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF