Poetry

The walk lost me

it took a left and a right
it went for blocks and blocks
past homes with purple doors
and turquoise newels         it was open
to suggestion         following the terrain
within a grey-sweater sky         chimneys
leaning in the still air         and one tiny
glass-walled house sprung from a roof
pots suspended inside overflowing
leaves         flowers         its season separate
from the unglassed world         beyond it
a steeple and a narrow steep-walled valley
the new train track extension within

My walk found a bench beside a park
for me to sit and take notes         and
further on         a public green lawn
with one man smoking

The walk         I tell you         was full
of gambrel medallions    and
cracked driveways         Lenten roses
and plaster pastel Easter bunnies
raw stumps along new wire fences
and elephantine roots overflowing
onto sidewalk         and on one corner
a square of white stones    displayed
an iron mouth the width of three of me
baring ten thousand bundled wires—
black teeth wreathed in iridescent
isinglass         and from the mouth         a throat
and from the throat         rounded shoulders
each piece wrapped in mantles of mica
that found the light in the clouds above
and mirrored the glint of my own eye

It was revealing and lonely
the almost-sunny April afternoon walk

Mary Buchinger

Mary Buchinger, author of six collections of poetry, including Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, 2023), Virology (Lily Books, 2022), einfühlung/in feeling (Main Street Rag, 2018), has work in Agni, DIAGRAM, Gargoyle, Laurel Review, Maine Review, phoebe, Plume, Salamander, Salt Hill, Seneca Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and serves on the board of the New England Poetry Club. Website: www.MaryBuchinger.com.

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