Wilson R. M. Taylor

Sixth Ave Slalom

I sidestep a sweating middle-aged man carrying skis

into UPS, hopscotch in and out of the gutter to escape

an Uber Eats e-bike doing thirty the wrong way.

Last week we went camping in Rhode Island,

ended up awake past midnight on rocky dirt, a man

in the next tent shouting into the phone about his stolen

 

Amazon package. Two workers in blue jumpsuits

plant a tree outside Trader Joe’s. The man in ragged black

always holding the door opens it and says, “God bless.”

 

I’ve never seen anyone give him change. I browse

the produce; I don’t buy him anything. On the sidewalk

on the way home, blue graffiti: SEA LEVEL 2050—

 

this island’s known for conquest. I put away

my frozen dinner. The onion I bought is rotten,

but I’m a good citizen: I’ll place it in the compost bin.


Family Farms, Cotswolds, UK

Walking the Monarch’s Way my parents and I learn

every manner by which to enter and exit a field:

kissing-gates, stiles, cattle guards, openings in hedges.

 

On our first day we emerge from the woods, crest

a slow, sweeping hill, and surprise the mothers

and their calves in the hollow on the other side.

 

“They’ll startle if you walk between them,” you say.

I inch closer for a picture. I’ve been waiting for the right

moment to tell you: “She’s moving in with me this fall.”

 

You’re silent as we leave the meadow, path indented

by old horseshoes. Maybe you’re thinking of my headlong

dash, hands in pockets, that cost me two front teeth.

 

That night, couples smile and dance in the pub window:

who they are, were, might be, all overlaid—and at their center,

glittering, a half-illuminated self. Tomorrow we’ll continue

 

this argument without speaking of it; I’ll point to

blackberry bushes dotting the slope, tart sweetness

between the bristles, “Should I pick some?” and you’ll say,

 

“I don’t think they’re ripe—not quite, not yet.”

Afterlife

The pool gleams, clean and skeletal;

fallen leaves fill black trash bags.

Tomorrow a man will add chlorine,

 

I’ll text my friends. We’ll jump into

the cool blue, capture our bodies

in midair, sky injected with sunlight—

 

my cigarette sheds dead galaxies

into the night. The screen goes

dark. Light lingers. We look out

 

for what outlasts, burn sand

to technicolor: a mirage

repeated on and off, immortal.


Wilson R. M. Taylor is a poet and writer living in New York City. His work appears in Chronogram, Every Day Fiction, an anthology from Wising Up Press, and a few other journals and magazines. He is a winner of the 2024 Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize. For more, please visit https://wilsontaylor19.wixsite.com/wilsonrmtaylor.

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