On the Train, Mulling Over Menopause
by Mary Buchinger
I just got out of prison –Three years –
Long time – I’m ready tho’ – Ready to be out.
Not a private admission,
he speaks in a loud voice, addressing the woman
beside him on this crowded morning train.
She’s working on a new translation of the Book of Psalms.
My period surprised me today, jumped the calendar,
last remaining eggs, wasted with time, still muster up
a fullness of uterus and I wish I didn’t have to stand just now.
The man is showing pictures of himself with his sweetheart,
all the ways he is spending his freedom. I tell everyone.
My friends say, why do you have to tell everyone.
But three years is a long time to account for,
and those blue-black initials tattooed on his neck,
a life-bound psalm.
This, after all, the nature of walls—
in every release,
revelation of what was holding
and what was held.
Mary Buchinger, author of six collections of poetry, including Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, 2023), Virology (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022), and e i n f ü h l u n g/in feeling (Main Street Rag, 2018), teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and serves on the board of the New England Poetry Club.
