Art Speak

Wendy Vardaman

    He’s sixteen, with a beard, but you’d never guess it
    to hear him talk: We make a lot of good
    stuff here, he says about the clay miniatures: A dead
    leg, a squid, an overflowing toilet.
    This is road kill. Here is my favorite:
    Mr. Brontosaurus on the toilet. This is a dead
    beached whale. He opens his backpack and lifts with one large hand
    the vampire girl he’s sewn from fabric scraps. Can I hold it?

    asks a classmate, 8. OK, he says, at last, taking time
    to think. Each night he rips
    her open, to repair, remove her little,
    knotted heart. She is very precious to me. But I’m having
    trouble. She keeps
    coming undone. She is very fragile.
     

    
Wendy Vardaman - Wendy Vardaman, has a Ph.D. in English from University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Engineering from Cornell University. Co-editor of Verse Wisconsin, her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in a variety of anthologies and journals. She lives in Madison, WI with husband, Thomas DuBois, has three children, and works for the children’s theater company, The Young Shakespeare Players Wendy Vardaman  in this issue... Tags: Thanal Online, web magazine dedicated for poetry and literature Wendy Vardaman, Art Speak
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