Carol A. Stephen

SCENES IN A YELLOW CAB

after Joe Brainard’s Imaginary Still Lifes


I climb into a taxi
          on the other seat is a man
          with an old grey monkey

I climb into a taxi
          on the other seat is a bird cage
          with a large egg inside

I climb into a taxi
          on the other seat is a dead body
          in a flowery hat

I climb into a taxi
          on the other seat are five cold plums
          I eat them

I climb into a taxi
          on the other seat is William Carlos Williams
          he is looking for some plums

I climb into a taxi
                    There is a picture of me on the back of the seat
                    Old grey monkey clutching an egg



Carol A. Stephen is a Carleton Place poet who typed her first poems in Toronto on a green Olivetti typewriter, complete with whiteouts. Her work sometimes shows up in Ottawa journals, Tree Press chapbooks, and Ontario Poetry Society’s Verse Afire. She took third place in the 2012 Canadian Authors National Capital Writing Contest. In 2012, she also wrote a finalist poem for VERSeFest for the End of the World Contest. Carol co-directs Ottawa’s Tree Reading Series and has written two chapbooks, Above the Hum of Yellow Jackets, 2011, and Architectural Variations, 2012. Carol blogs about stuff on Quillfyre.