The Sun Is This Day’s State Of Affairs

July 2022 | poetry

                yesterday was no sun

anywhere but everywhere I can’t

know only my ken  my neighborhood

my house of cats and cashmere

pickled by moths

                          the little I see—

I can count the walls

and know I exist

                         but the sun never

asks about itself   it is not a god

who depends on its people

                                not all seeing

objects are created equal

                               every day my skin

sees more than I do  even muffled

in clothes its cameras see eye to eye

with the cat’s toes

                     my wet flesh envelope

posts itself on dog walks and sky chases

in city parks

                    I can’t vouch for you

my deep wide body  you know more

than I do

            What are you cooking in there

what conversation are you having

with the sun?

                   I tell your knuckles

to unbunch  yet there you go

spending your skin on everyone

Mary Buchinger

Mary Buchinger is the author of five collections of poetry, including / klaʊdz / (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2021), e i n f ü h l u n g/in feeling (Main Street Rag, 2018), Aerialist (Gold Wake, 2015), and Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, forthcoming). Her work has appeared in AGNI, Boston Globe, DIAGRAM, Gargoyle, Massachusetts Review, PANK, phoebe, Plume, Salamander, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and elsewhere. She is president of the New England Poetry Club and professor of English and communication studies at MCPHS University in Boston. Website: www.marybuchinger.com.

Gimmickry

July 2022 | poetry

Vomiting against the wind, hungover sacrosanct,

presenting itself through a badge of honour,

traipsing through the streets, a homely sight,

more surprises championed against growing up

sympathised through another disposition.

This goodly act, slighting for  better entertainment,

what happens upstairs stays there, coffee aside,

working through swathes of imperfect manuscripts,

more worse then the other, never fathoming distance

infinite drafts slipping under scrutiny of same.

Close proximity, proposed even more attractive,

a steady kiss prolongs the desperate situation

being pawed for good measure, regretting at leisure

Hitting through secret apertures waiting for use

wanting  what’s not on the table, a desire abdicated.

Watching from below, a closeted cry still heard

oscillating through indifference and agony,

monumental trademark as ubiquitous as the trees

lights not going out, under cover of alcohol,

solid flowers in lieu of half-arsed apologies.

No context for that smile, private jokes abiding,

grimacing from one’s own a fault worth permitting,

loved within measure still not enough,

infinite coffee, refills, riches worth pursuing

not uglified by persuasion, desired through want.

Patricia Walsh

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland. To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled “Continuity Errors,” with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals. These include: The Lake; Seventh Quarry Press; Marble Journal; New Binary Press; Stanzas; Crossways; Ygdrasil; Seventh Quarry; The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review; Poethead and The Evening Echo. She has also published a novel, In The Days of Ford Cortina, in August 2021.