A Little Too–

Marsha Mathews

 

Noble, Georgia, 2002

 

                                                A woman walking her dog in the woods

                                                foot-tapped the bowl-shaped bone

                                                her dog wouldn’t leave alone.

                                                Eye sockets. Human.

                                                The deputy arrived, pounded her

                                                with questions she couldn’t answer.

                                                A shrill bark led them to a gulley.

                                                Corpses, stacked. Six

feet

high.

                                                A call for reinforcements.

                                                With quakes rolling in their stomachs,

they followed the dog, the stench.

                                                Behind a nearby crematorium,

                                                a rusted storage shed. They pried

                                                the door. Who wants to go

first?

                                                Inside, eighty bodies.

                                                Some with flesh.

          A few white

                                                hospital bracelets dangling

                                                loose

about femurs.

***

Marsha Mathews is an American poet and Professor Emerita, Dalton State College. During the 1990s, Marsha served as an Ordained Minister in the United Methodist Church. Her poems have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, The Fourth River: Best Writings of the Decade; Delmarva Review; Gargoyle; Raleigh Review; War, Literature & the Arts; and many other fine journals. Mathews has four chapbooks, most recently Growing Up with Pigtails (Aldrich, 2016), winner of the Georgia Author of the Year Award. Her first full collection of poetry, BEAUTY BOUND, explores human extremes to attain attractiveness. She welcomes you to her author’s page http://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/beauty-bound-marsha-mathews/