• Current Issues
  • Past Issues
    • Issue 1: Spring 2020
    • Issue 2: Summer 2020
    • Issue 3: Fall 2020
    • Issue 4: Winter 2020
    • Issue 5: Spring 2021
    • Issue 6: Summer 2021
    • Issue 7: Fall 2021
    • Issue 8: Winter 2021
    • Issue 9: Spring 2022
    • Issue 10: Summer 2022
    • Issue 11: Fall 2022
  • Intervals
  • Submit
    • Masthead
  • Contact
  • Trio House Press

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.

Things Fall Apart

My father lost his job to engineers that moved technology into software,
rather than the ball pivot of the typewriter, so he accepted a position driving elderly
nuns to doctor’s appointments, the post office, and pharmacy. They were all but forgotten;
gray clucking doves. Most days, he waited in the van while each sister checked for mail,
maybe a relative sent $20.00, a card from a niece or nephew; until today.
Sister Eugenia asked him to follow her into the Kmart, over the gleaming linoleum,
through the racks of sweaters, blouses, and skirts into foundations.
Flushed and proud, Sister held upa Maidenform, Triple D. O’ the potential
of what is empty, vessels for so many things: seashells, flashing sea glass, resplendent cranberries,
ultimately filled with sister’s untouched flesh, of wanting, what we all want—to be loved.

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, in my dream. Grey, white, brindle, all where there should have been hammers and screwdrivers. He offered me a 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.

Subscribe

Thank you!

Error

Bad respond
Copyright © 2020-2023 Trio House Press, Inc.

We use cookies to enable essential functionality on our website, and analyze website traffic. By clicking Accept you consent to our use of cookies. Read about how we use cookies.

Your Cookie Settings

We use cookies to enable essential functionality on our website, and analyze website traffic. Read about how we use cookies.

Cookie Categories
Essential

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our websites. You cannot refuse these cookies without impacting how our websites function. You can block or delete them by changing your browser settings, as described under the heading "Managing cookies" in the Privacy and Cookies Policy.

Analytics

These cookies collect information that is used in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are.