Mary Lou Buschi
Mary Lou Buschi’s poems have appeared in many literary journals such as Radar, Ploughshares, The Laurel Review, and West Trestle, among others. Her second full-length collection, Paddock, was published by Lily Poetry Review Books in 2021.
You Don't Need to be the Lead Bird
Racing to the head just as the other birds rise from the back etiquette, as a flock knows. You don’t need to scream, “look-out” even if you are the only one who sees disaster. No need to list the ways in which the world will end. There are 101 names for grief. 101 daydreams you don’t have anymore. You don’t need to know the name for every full moon, but you do need to stand in your yard at 3:00 AM and curse its beauty. And when sunrise comes, and it will,you will need to know the number of eggs to crack to ignite the entire world in sunlight.
The Day We Heard
They’d have to take my father’s leg from the knee down was worse than hearing he died. How will he drive the Wagoneer without a foot for speed? How will he climb the stairs to my bedroom to say good night, or walk me to the 5:26 train in the morning? The dead leg hung like an abandoned cliff. We carried on over it, making believe that it was not a tenuous line that had been crossed.
My father pulled rabbits from his toolbox; grey, white, brindle, all where there should have been hammers and screwdrivers. He offered me a Long Eared Lop Rabbit to screw in a socket. When he placed the rabbit in my hands it turned to sand. He said, “You see, it all happens that fast.”
The morning of the amputation my father climbed out of his body, got behind the wheel of his big white van, waved back at us with a placid smile. As the van moved forward, the van became cloud, then disappeared into a flask of light.
My father pulled rabbits from his toolbox; grey, white, brindle, all where there should have been hammers and screwdrivers. He offered me a Long Eared Lop Rabbit to screw in a socket. When he placed the rabbit in my hands it turned to sand. He said, “You see, it all happens that fast.”
The morning of the amputation my father climbed out of his body, got behind the wheel of his big white van, waved back at us with a placid smile. As the van moved forward, the van became cloud, then disappeared into a flask of light.
