Tell me Something Good
           -After Hayden Carruth

It’s a crossword from the Juneau Empire,
it’s 9:00 am and we are all drinking whiskey
at The Red Dog. I land on an article,
Something to Stout About. The smell of stale
beer and smoke-soaked wood stirs
memories of my father and dark taverns where,
I sat at the bar asking for re-ups on the cherries in my coke.
The withered shadow at the end of the splintered counter
gestures for another as the swirl from glass stars,
out the window, catches the thread of another day.
I’m struck with a sudden love for each and every
living thing. Here’s to us, raise a glass as
a curtain of snow flutters then falls back.

*

Mary Lou Buschi’s poems have appeared in Indiana Review, Willow Springs, Tar River, Lily Poetry Review, Thrush, Cloudbank among others. Mary Lou’s full-length collection, Awful Baby, was published through Red Paint Hill (2015). Tight Wire, her third chapbook, was published by Dancing Girl Press (2016). Her second full-length collection, Paddock, will be out in May, 2021 through Lily Poetry Review Books.

Turning

There is room enough for two
in your bed but I stay off to the side

wanting to pull just one corner
of one blanket over myself.

Instead I reach my arms around you,
pull the blankets in tight,

curled you up as if I was meant to send
you somewhere dangerous.

By habit, or maybe will,
you try to cover my arms

as if the child you remember
is still here.

*

Mary Lou Buschi’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Laurel Review, The Chestnut Review. Radar, Midway Journal, among others. Mary Lou has 3 chapbooks and 2 full-length collections. Paddock, her 2nd collection will be out March 2021 through Lily Poetry Review.