Love Poem: Naming the Dead Places
Taylor Graham Avatar
Written by: Taylor Graham

Naming the Dead Places

Cienega Campground – Science Club
planted sapling pines, you spooked 
a rattlesnake – all those hopeful pines
rot now at the bottom of a reservoir.

Alfalfa fields where you used to ride
bareback, easing the math lessons 
out of your spine – fields diced now
into “Drive” and “Court” and “Avenue.”

Soledad Canyon, where you looked out 
the late-bus window in the dark
for that one true-love star – it’s
just a freeway exit now.

Life extends its plains forever. 
Who rewrites geography, a child’s 
own history, when the place 
it happened doesn’t exist anymore?