Trunk-Sale

Give you Billie Holiday for a buck,

the old man opens up his trunk—a load

of LPs. Tattered jackets. Lady Luck

sees better days, and worse. He's on the road

to somewhere—to be needing cash—to sell

his music. Here's Marsalis face to face

with Beethoven, that grand piano swell

of sonata moonlight. He's got a space

behind the used-book store—he'll have to plug

a parking meter if he plans to stay.

Glenn Miller? In the Mood, Little Brown Jug,

Tuxedo Junction—how that band could play!

He smiles inside his eyes, and hums along

as if our common dreams get caught in song.

Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada. She's included in the anthologies Villanelles (Everyman's Library, 2012) and California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University, 2004). Her collection, The Downstairs Dance Floor, was awarded the Robert Philips Poetry Chapbook Prize.