The Library of Congress

   
Poem Number 134

A poet can imagine anything, even people disappearing into the sky.

One Day A Woman

Miller Williams

One day a woman picking peaches in Georgia
lost her hold on the earth and began to rise.
She grabbed limbs but leaves stripped off in her hands.
Some children saw her before she disappeared
into the white cloud, her limbs thrashing.
The children were disbelieved. The disappearance
was filed away with those of other women
who fell into bad hands and were soon forgotten.
Six months later a half-naked man in Kansas
working on the roof of the Methodist Church
was seen by half a dozen well-known
and highly respected citizens to move
directly upward, his tarbrush waving,
until he shrank away to a point and vanished.
Nobody who knew about the first event
knew of the second, so no connection was made.
The tarbrush fell to earth somewhere in Missouri
unnoticed among a herd of Guernsey cows.

 

from Imperfect Love, 1986
Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA

Copyright 1986 by Miller Williams.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced with permission (click for permissions information).