Autopsy of a Turvy World
Sheri-D Wilson, winner of the 2005 WGA Stephan G Stephansson award for best book of poetry, presents a scalpel-sharp view of 21st century afflictions such as noise pollution, airport security, and fast food encounters. A shocking and wildly funny book.
Reviews
Wilson and her work are both entertaining and visionary. The pieces often feature the voices of women, creating a space for the expression and exploration of the female perspective. ~Queens Quarterly
Samples
I Visited The Bridge Of Your Ghost On A Full Moon Morning
Today, I came to visit the bridge of your ghost like a monument built over mortality and the weeds and the flowers grow below the solid line, like capsized dreams. And I came to the water’s edge where they left you face down in the mud, drowned and clubbed to death. When I was down there the groundskeeper came by, to say a mother duck laid her eggs just inches from where they left your life behind for less than a song. Underneath the wooden bridge— what the hell went wrong, all graffiti skulls and half-sprayed words under there, on the cement wall pylon beside the place where they kicked and you crawled— I sing to you. I sing to you a lullaby—sense of senselessness fills up in hollow blue hue questioning why, why you? Under a noisy wooden bridge planks and beams shudder and quake, above my head, rush-hour retreads, snakes over. I take digital vigil snaps of your beautiful imaginary body, invisible outline wraps around the tide here still like a flower, a water flower where you laid to rest your final breath, and I can hear you here, beg for mercy I can hear you here clear as spiritual bells ring in a bowl. Past midnight, a meteorite, you write prayers across the sky. I want you to know, I sing to you in praise, and I hope you might hear me as the night heard you cry, through the wooden bridge above, like a racket, rattle dust overhead. Was it heaven you thought you heard above you, like a calling overhead circling like vulture-angels’ tell-tale tattle, and the herring in the water still and the heron’s priested shore, and the gates open above the bridge to the other side where you might live again? Gates where you might live again in your teenaged body like a long note of stolen youth and eyes of naked wonder, body unlocked to love and all the births you might’ve had. The streets grow quiet and the ducks brood on their eggs and all that remains of life is death and memory and ghosts and my song humming still humming along— Today, I came to visit the bridge of your ghost where people cross everyday on their way in and out of their lives en route over bones, sticks and stones cockle shells, easy ivy over. The sacrifice of a flower and a heron and a weed and a clam and a blackberry bush, and a final hour. Crow calls to me and I try to understand without meaning. Reason is a name on a gravestone I once saw. Light breaks and when does hatred rest— and the wash of excitement and the rush of relief and the disbelief that they actually killed you with sticks and stones, and they did break your teenaged bones and their names will always hurt me.
Ma and Tight Corners: Tipsy Curvy
“It goes like stink!” ~ Ma, 1969 It was a turquoise 1957 Chevy with the truck engine. And Ma would drive that old jalopy around corners, hell bent like a Formula One demon on speed, and she’d yell, Hang on! We’d be in the back seat changing from our school clothes into our brownie uniforms, and she’d take the corner with a fighting spirit, on two wheels, and we’d hang onto the seats for dear life, gripping with our fingertips till our lips turned psych ward white, and then both car doors on one side would fly open, no holy shit handles we’d hang on to that front seat with the fake fur seat-covers so we didn’t go flying out… …and then the corner would be over and the heavy ’57 Chevy doors would come flying shut. Bang! Bang! And we’d go back to changing our clothes and eating our Kentucky Fried Chicken right out of the barrel, like pros, finger lickin’ good; before seat belts, and car seats and sun block and water wings. Way back when they’d give us matches to play with and guns to shoot the bottles lined up on the fence for fun. Back when you could ride without a helmet, feel the wind in your hair. Because of Ma I’ve never been afraid of the dark. She taught me how to stay on my toes, how to dance with danger. And she’s funny. Damn, she’s funny. Always makes me laugh. Sometimes it scares me when I think I might be exactly like her.
