Wilson R. M. Taylor: Two Poems

Cost of Living

My girlfriend says, Maybe if I sell my eggs
I could buy these jeans. Our friend’s

roommate’s boyfriend pays his rent by being
a sperm donor; he insists he’ll make it

as a musician one day. He’s awful, but at least
he doesn’t have a corporate job like I do.

We walk up Warren Street, window-shopping.
My sister was born in this town; the maternity

ward has closed. My parents sold their home
long before it became someone’s second house.

They had their happiest years here. These last
two summers, they rented a place nearby—

it felt like it might become tradition.
Then my mom was diagnosed.

It’s hard to know how much to sacrifice,
which future will become inaccessible,

whose will be exactly as we imagine.
My girlfriend admires a pair of pearl earrings;

pricey, maybe worth it. Three months later
I’ll surprise her, and she’ll say, It’s too much.

~~~

Conservation of Matter

Today I said goodbye to my mother
for a few weeks. Five months ago,

the doctor estimated she had six to twelve
to live. I fly back and forth to replace futures

we’ve lost; I leave long scars in the atmosphere.
On my way to the airport, I pictured myself

standing on a crumbling, silent highway,
ivy climbing the overpasses. The train

from the terminal runs along the airfields,
red and white lights amidst a galaxy

of human light: skyscrapers, exit signs
reflected and re-reflected in this glass-walled

chamber. Lava becomes rock, becomes sand,
becomes a window. Maybe it doesn’t

matter when something changes shape:
A bacterium absorbs a bacterium, becomes

a eukaryote. A few leaps later you and I
are born, briefly separate from nature

in the way we store memories outside
ourselves. I force myself to believe she

will go on—as if she’s just stepped out
for air on a summer evening, as if we’ll finish

this conversation when she comes back inside.

~~~~

Copyright 2026 Wilson R. M. Taylor

Wilson R. M. Taylor is a poet and writer living in New York City. He was a winner of the 2024 Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize, the 2024 Bacopa Literary Review Fiction Prize, and the 2025 Toasted Cheese A Midsummer Tale Contest. His work has appeared in Chronogram, Clockhouse, Yearling, and a number of other publications, as well as on WNYC.