Gravity Issue 24 - Shari Diane Willadson

Shari Diane Willadson

Bone Confusions

I visit her each week on Thursday.
We sit on the porch at a table
with a hinged glass lid, every week
there are different things under
the glass. This week, there are cut-outs
from a nudie magazine; none of them
have feet. Last week, there were pages
from an encyclopedia chopped into
squares, #5, Colburne-Dice.

She says she feels like a dog
she once had; it wouldn't stay
in its pen, so finally, she poured
a concrete floor and closed the top
with chicken wire. The next day,
the dog hung itself while trying
to bite through the wire.

I ask her what she means
to hang herself with. "My confusions"
she says with a smile. There are
normal confusions: getting into
the bathtub with your socks on,
taking a drink of water expecting milk,
the times when all faces look familiar
so that you don't know who you know.

Then there are bone confusions;
she can't find the word for "word"
and chooses her food in the market
by whether the picture on the can
looks good. She eats dogfood and
tortilla chips; her son has told her,
but now she likes the taste
and the picture does look good.

She tells me a story about an earthworm
farmer. He kept millions of worms on a black
tarp under a strong light in the backyard.
One night, the power went out and the worms
all crawled away. The next morning he got up,
looked at the tarp and said,
"I didn't hear a thing." She laughs
and laughs and laughs.

Crow Years

The crows are flapping; they are too tired
to call anymore. I am grateful for that.
The years that they tar the roofs

are crow years. After the workmen are gone,
the crows settle high on the edges
of the buildings. Their feet stick

and they scream. In a few weeks,
there will be a row of crow bodies
hanging by their feet. I have thought

about trying to save them or
at least give them water. Maybe
with a sponge and a long stick like

a soldier did for Jesus. My only fear
is that then it might give them
the strength to cry again.

Shari Diane Willadson has been writing for over twenty years.She has been published in The Astrophycist's Tango Partner Speaks, Moonshade magazine, Poetry Cafe, and Poetry Magazine. She lives in Washington State, USA with her husband and daughter.