From the Back of the Room
Mary Buchinger
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Faculty Meeting No. 11
It’s the Dolphin standing on his tail
waving his flippers. “Assessment” says
this pet—“This is our task for this year!”
Oh the ball of unreality, how it lights
on his nose, and rises like an example.
The floor, so slippery, gives way to shiny!
Shiny! Shiny new! Obladee!
Faculty Meeting No. 42
going. online. online. online. online.
online. no space. no. no space. space
is all we are. bodies in space. breathing
the company air. teaching is training.
is a football we can squeeze into waves
send across the internet. catch.
oh virtual student. catch.
do you read me.
Faculty Meeting No. 73
Penguin Man is next,
clipboard tucked under
the ineffective wing.
He shifts from foot
to foot, beneath
the creamy acoustic-
tiled sky.
It’s a review of my life
and I’m falling asleep.
Points of arguments,
little knots I climb on,
like a sacred childhood,
hanging, as on a pendulum
from some undisclosed center.
Faculty Meeting No. 104
She rises, curl of bean,
cotyledon curves up
from the pod of her hips,
hips draped with a lively
green and gold ruffle.
Oh the spread, the great
terrible spread, years
swelling our cells.
Faculty Meeting No. 125
Her mouth of watermelon seeds,
blossoms splay above the knee,
blue-lined eyes and silvered toes.
Quick, guess her discipline!
And another in this hall of women:
Tan and gauzy
a flower petal
weighted down
with a caramel wasp
what but speaks
humanities—
possibly
Victorian
Faculty Meeting No. 156
How many apples in the air?
I only can hear the words
but it’s all movement,
drumming and disturbance.
All this talk. I’m limbs and pores,
paper cuts and calluses. Catch me,
all the bits of me, someone,
someone, in your sunbeam, plz.
Faculty Meeting No. 777
Under the dome
in the tent
on this hard table
of satellites
stars swinging
off the way
carve a dusty
cloud in shadows
We can’t
anticipate
Everything
Nor should we.
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Mary Buchinger, whose recent books include The Book of Shores (2024) and Virology (2022) both from Lily Poetry Review Books, and Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, 2023; longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award), teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston. Her poetry appears in AGNI, Gargoyle, Laurel Review, Lincoln Review, Nimrod, On the Seawall, Plume, Salt Hill, Seneca Review, South Dakota Review, Sugar House Review, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and elsewhere.
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