[when birds]
when birds sing
I feel it inside
and am changed
their chirr and twee
the manic insistence of my branch! my tree!
the lightful song of a pale-blossom wren
enters my innermost cavity
&
my neighbor’s windchimes too
a belling song
feathered-metal clang
that churches inside me
touches old hymns and passages
I once memorized
the sound it wrings from the breeze
when I hear it
it’s here
w/in
the chamber of me
&
that day
when my student rose from her seat
leaving her journal open on her desk
and walked to the front of the room
to rasp into my ear
her sudden urgent
revelation
that she could hear
the very thoughts
of the student sitting beside her
they are beautiful and true
she said
as solid and clear as if written
in my own mind
I’m holy she told me
a Messiah In fact
everyone in the room
is sacred
A wall inside me rose and fell
[my cat loves]
my cat loves to climb beneath the bedsheet
and rest her head on my wrist
stretched long beside me
she changes my silhouette
her thrumming body
an extension of mine
her fur against my skin
and when she purrs
the corduroy’d riff
of her breathing in and out
vibrates and syncopates
this small creature breathing
like me warm
coursing w/ blood and hum
Mary Buchinger is the author of six full-length books of poetry, including: There Is Only the Sacred and the Desecrated (2026, Lily Poetry Review Books, Paul Nemser Book Prize, Honorable Mention); The Book of Shores, (2024, Lily Poetry Review Books; Permafrost Book Prize in Poetry finalist; Hillary Gravendyk Prize, semifinalist), Navigating the Reach (2024 Massachusetts Book Award Honors), and three chapbooks. Her poetry appears in AGNI, Laurel Review, Nimrod, On the Seawall, Plume, Salt Hill, Seneca Review, and elsewhere. She is a member of Slate Roof Press and teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston.
January House Literary Journal 
Leave a comment