The Cold Side of Window by Taylor Graham

Rain smears the glass but she won’t 

come in. Her place is walking in weather, 

looking into distances no one else can see.

Her husband has not come home. 

Wandering, they say, from canyon to mesa 

in the province of Lost. This is no 

romance, where he’ll suddenly fling open 

the door and recant every absence.

They found his pack, discarded on sand 

“neatened” – what a strange word, 

meant to calm her – night and day by wind 

that scrubs away footprints. In that cold,

high desert, he could slip into the balm 

of sleep without a waking. She wills him 

to count the nights by stars and angels 

as if they could map his way back home.

Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in El Dorado County. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, and Southern Humanities Review. Her latest book is What the Wind Says (Lummox Press, 2013), about living, training and searching with her canine partners.