Elizabeth Graziano
I dream of a Dead Man’s Saloon,
where there’s a gathering of ghosts,
folks who usually reside on my bookshelf.
In the back, Dosteovsky sits stone-faced
in dark glasses at a card table,
palming an ace. He raises Mark Twain,
who folds as Faulkner spits chaw
on the sawdust floor and calls.
Meanwhile, belly-up at the bar,
sharing a bottle of expensive red wine,
Freud and Sophocles snicker
at the fact that my wife and mother
share the exact same name.
—Nathan Graziano, Manchester, NH
