Bernard Wills is a resident of Corner Brook Newfoundland and a Canadian citizen. He is professor of Humanities at Grenfell Campus Memorial University. His published poems have appeared in The Maynard, Horseshoe, Event, Vallum, Nashwaak Review, Antigonish Review, Paper Mill Press, and Inkpot. His poem 'Bucket of Eels' appeared in the Anthology Buoys and Markers (Horseshoe Community Press, 2025) His poem 'Igor' was the winner of the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Arts and Letters prize for poetry for 2020. In 2024 he won a second Arts and Letters prize for a poem entitled 'Pictures'.

Bernard Wills

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My thought is the dead should always stay the dead.
Here is my mother sitting at the kitchen table
having her tea like nothing happened. Head
for the hills if you see that happen, no one able
to state the obvious, everyone in denial, dad
and sisters pretending, nobody mentioning
that the woman here is dead. We even had
her funeral, you all were there, this thing
is getting ridiculous. I will shout the truth.
You are dead, you smell of dirt, go back below.
Your breath is of the grave and now your tooth
is drawn, your lips ash, your eyes don't glow
with any spark, they sit there and accuse.
Those vengeful dead, they pinch you till you bruise.