We bring whatever it is we live inside
to be looked over by the mechanics
Mine is crisp chevy-blue with hot yellow seats
chock-full of animals
some are memories of animals
companions I hold into the night
It takes me from here to there
holds everything I subsist on
it’s /recognizable/
Oh that is your life they say Well, I
qualify, This is my life /today/
Hard-shelled
traveling grenade protects and promises
some day
to explode
I thought it was a helmet
my friend says knocking on my trunk
my ladybug my green splintered bone
It grew overnight I tell her
my skin has always been
/unpredictable/ like that
In fact, it’s the earth’s crust and it’s over my head
my meconium, its cambium the conversion of light
to sugar the shingled hood a lovely leafy roof
hands nails my braid of breakable plates
books couches rugs pixels bran
and deep /inside/ the cats dog one leaping Guernsey calf
I drive all of it to the forest
Please, I say, look me over,
employ your /implements/
Mary Buchinger
Mary Buchinger is the author of four collections of poetry, including e i n f ü h l u n g/in feeling, Aerialist, and Navigating the Reach (forthcoming). She is president of the New England Poetry Club and professor of English and communication studies at MCPHS University in Boston. www.marybuchinger.com
