Mary Lou Buschi
Three Poems
Lusus Naturae
It was his only friend
that opened the gate to his spectacle.
The only way he could rest
was to place his monstrous skull
on his knees or risk dying of asphyxia.
Like Pip and Flip Snow were freaks,
characterized by abnormally
small craniums, wide smiles, and high chignons.
Their parents loaned them out to freak shows
to earn money for the family.
Freaks shows were common.
Life as a curiosity—
At the end of pier in Atlantic City,
I entered with my parents. There she sat,
a bearded woman whose eyes looked like open cans.
I had a dilation and curettage
when I was 9, a D&C.
I was told there was nothing
in there, just a body hyper
to get started. I asked my mother
if I could have my breasts removed.
How many fields did I lie back in?
Shut my eyes and wait until I
swallow the dark and endless winter.
Learning to meditate, one body part at a time:
hip socket-tighten-focus-release. Curve of my elbow,
tighten-release. Wet my lips—let them part.
Release into the soft lid of light.
When Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man
decided to lie flat he did so because of a poem
his mother read to him; Tennyson’s, Nothing Will Die.
If release means to give up—
Ride
When he slapped her
she held the hot blow on her cheek
and continued to love him.
They rode bikes.
She still had training wheels,
not permitted to leave the drive,
so she’d make hard circles,
leaning into the center
until he dared her to ride away.
She went to his house without her bike.
He came around the side,
on his Schwinn, told her to climb on
he’d show her what balance felt like.
She didn’t know where to put her hands.
The air thick, her throat dry, as the rush
came up over the slate, up-rimmed from
thick roots; a catalog of house sailing past.
Her father standing in the drive under
the shadow of the open door,
leaves her in the garage
among the boxes of forgotten things
How To Snake A Drain
As the auger begins its journey down the drain,
push the end in until you feel resistance.
It was a shoe, one that could not be snaked.
Brenda sobbed when she found her Kork-Ease
unceremoniously jammed into the toilet.
It all happened between English and gym
in the 2nd floor bathroom.
No one would come forward to say that they had done it.
Was it an accident? Was someone playing catch
over the bathroom stalls? Did Brenda do it herself?
You may have to apply pressure as you rotate the snake
around the tight curve into the trap.
The rotating action enables the tip of the snake
to attach to the clog and spin it away or chop it up.
Brenda denied the claim.
If the clog is a solid,
the auger head entangles the object.
The janitor fished the shoe out and put it in a plastic bag.
Brenda was wrecked and what a shame, her hair
was in such a perfect twist on top of her head.
Her sweet face looked even more honeyed
wet with tears.
If you don’t feel the auger breaking
through and twisting getting easier,
pull the auger out of the drain—
Brenda sat up front the rest of the day
receiving first-rate attention from teachers and students alike.
I sat back braiding my thoughts around who
could have done such a thing to so sweet a girl.
—Submitted on 07/07/2020
Mary Lou Buschi is the author of Paddock (Lily Poetry Review, forthcoming), Awful Baby (Red Paint Hill, 2015) and The Spell of Coming (or Going) (Patasola Press, 2013), as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Willow Springs, Chestnut Review, Midway Journal, and other journals. Buschi holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a Master of Science in urban education from Mercy College.
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