Author’s Note: Many Junes ago, my friend and I found ourselves in Times Square, just as the full moon was rising between skyscrapers. It looked incongruous beside the flashing billboards and scrolling marquees, and I too felt out of place, having grown up in the Midwest on a farm, far from urban centers. I also was experiencing the strangeness of being pregnant—the moon of my body, the new life stirring there—so, in this alien landscape, when I saw a woman draped with lizards, I felt a kind of kinship.
I Land as on Mars
in the flash and flare of Times Square
my years of growing up on a farm
gather up and hide,
but I understand the lizard lady immediately
her adornment of creatures
their calm draping her, large green fronds
cool to the touch on this June dusk
the strawberry moon rising
improbable between hard-edged buildings
as the being in my round belly
my hands move to soothe the kicking
light, tender, that draws me inward
as we stand among the noise
filled with expectation
I read the glowing orange banner
—news! it scrolls across the sky.
⧫
Mary Buchinger teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and serves on the board of the New England Poetry Club. She is the author of six collections of poetry, including Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, 2023), Virology (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022), and Einfühlung/in feeling (Main Street Rag, 2018). Website: www.marybuchinger.com
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