glass jars—
_ _the village children
_ _lower them
_ _into the Vivonne for minnows
crystal containers of flowing crystal
_ insoluble glass_ _ impalpable water
_
_ _the fish flashing,
_ _caught and carried for bait
_ _come, time, come
bite,
_ _that child-once-was
_ _that splash in a jar
Based on passages from C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin’s translation of Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, with revisions by D. J. Enright.
Mary Buchinger is the author of three poetry collections: e i n f ü h l u n g / in feeling (Main Street Rag, 2018), Aerialist (Gold Wake, 2015, shortlisted for the May Swenson Poetry Award, the OSU Press/The Journal Wheeler Prize for Poetry, and the Perugia Press Prize), and Roomful of Sparrows (Finishing Line, 2008). Her poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, Gargoyle, AGNI, Salamander, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. She received both the Daniel Varoujan and the Firman Houghton Awards from the New England Poetry Club and was an invited poet at the Library of Congress. She is currently president of the New England Poetry Club and professor of English and Communication Studies at MCPHS University in Boston. (updated 10/2018)