Mary Buchinger
At Twenty
I loved your room on the top floor
in that rangy grey house, drawings
torn from magazines tacked to the wall
above your crowded desk:
Too loose, Lautrec!
A man drowning in his cartoon suit
vibrating in crayon greens and orange,
a tailor with pins in his mouth looks up.
And I, too young.
Did anyone say that? Only later do we know
each age we were.
Once I drove a long summer night
to your ragged room, to the soft and narrow
tin-tined bed, to your arms where morning sun
poured its gold,
white sheet winding across your thigh
where I placed a blue-speckled enamel bowl
of fresh-washed grapes.
How they glistened
skins taut, ready to burst against our teeth,
cold, tart.
Mary Buchinger
Mary Buchinger is the author of seven collections of poetry; her most recent books are Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, Honors, 2024 Massachusetts Book Award), The Book of Shores (2024), and Virology (2022) both from Lily Poetry Review Books, and she is the winner of the 2024 Elyse Wolf/Slate Roof Chapbook Prize. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Plume, Salt Hill, Seneca Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Website: www.MaryBuchinger.com