Measuring for a new counter-top
of black granite,

studying paint charts and testing
six subtle shades of avocado
on the kitchen wall,

replacing naked florescent tubes
with a natty overhead
in the style of art nouveau,

shoring up the side porch
to bring it into plumb, erasing
swags along the roofline—

my wife is making
so many improvements
I don’t sleep well at night.

-Richard Taylor
Fading into Bolivia
Accents Publishing

Richard Taylor is a professor of English and currently serves as Kenan Visiting Writer at Transylvania University. A former Kentucky poet laureate, he is the author of six collections of poetry, two novels, and several books of non-fiction, mostly relating to Kentucky history. A former dean and teacher in the Governor’s Scholars Program, he was selected as Distinguished Professor at Kentucky State University in 1992. He has won two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Al Smith Creative Writing Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. He and his wife Lizz own Poor Richard’s Books in Frankfort, Kentucky.