Mary Buchinger

one poem

Prefigure

What trick of light lays the city out
flat against March’s blue baize?
Seams of cars glint in morning sun
above a terrazzo of old ice. Blank trees
pin down the verge. Cutout skyline—
skyscrapers, chimneys, spires—denies
entry of eyes. The silvered river holds
sun’s glare steady, says, Look at me,
Don’t look at me, pocked and mottled
raw silk. How lovely, I think, its grey
skirt against my thighs, forgetting
its cold and hardness—surely fishes
flash below, striped, emerald and gold,
await the spring, its predators, its promises.

Mary Buchinger is the author of e i n f ü h l u n g/in feeling (2018), Aerialist (2015), and Roomful of Sparrows (2008). Her poetry has appeared in AGNI, DIAGRAM, Gargoyle, [PANK], Salamander, Slice Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Hollins Critic, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. She is President of the New England Poetry Club (founded in 1915 by Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, and Conrad Aiken) and Professor of English and communication studies at MCPHS University in Boston. Her website is www.MaryBuchinger.com.