Death & Dying
Deacon Taylor
From Spoon River Anthology (1916)
Death & Dying
I belonged to the church,
And to the party of prohibition;
And the villagers thought I died of eating watermelon.
In truth I had cirrhosis of the liver,
For every noon for thirty years,
I slipped behind the prescription partition
In Trainor’s drug store
And poured a generous drink
From the bottle marked “Spiritus frumenti.”
Cite this poem
MLA
Masters, Edgar Lee. “Deacon Taylor.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/masters/56/.
Chicago
Masters, Edgar Lee. “Deacon Taylor.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/masters/56/.
Read this poem with the Codex →