Benjamin Buchholz's poetry and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of venues, including:  The Wisconsin Academy Review, Snow Monkey, The 2River View, Abyss & Apex, Far Sector, Oatmeal & Poetry, and Anemone Sidecar.  He just began a period of indentured servitude as a slushjunkie at Abyss & Apex.  A native Wisconsinner, he hails variously from Waupun, Madison, and Baraboo, as the mood inclines.  There is a fleck of something in his eye right now, so he must stop writing.


Moving Day
 
At its very zenith the earth-salting
Sun
 
Sets just north of the Casino (you can come sit on my backstep
Above the fen and watch it go down)
 
Jackie does not know, nor care, nor—like so many who might—
Pretend to either, what goes on between that sheeting of
 
Sun and its return.
 
The taste of her will not leave you. You touch your fingers to
Your mouth and it is there again, like an orange rind: the arch
 
Of her as she lifts her welcome to your mouth, the hothouse stillness
Of her clerestory quarters,
 
This room of another, younger sister, borrowed for a time, boxes unpacked.
A sister sent out to the becoming unordinary. You and she thought, a thing
 
You shared, rather than this lovemaking
It would be war and the blood-dust of some teenage mullah
 
That filled your nostrils, there
In the bullethole hallway of another Interior Ministry.
 
 •   •   •
 
Uptown
 
Here is where memory will betray you.
 
All you possess to judge yourself
Is the recollection of Paul's Place
With its oak-leafed ceiling and a
Dancing smoke from the candelabra, black
 
Tight knit sweaters and girls reading over
Horned-rimmed glasses Kant and Machiavelli.
There is much wine and when you shove your change
The bartender says you and she look like forever.
 
You hold that vision up before you, a lace
Nightgown. You can look through it and see
Yourself ribboned and manicured and perfect.
Yet, when you cross the bar, there is a long-
 
Haired hippie wearing grooves in the glasstop
Counter and a bunch of farm girls with Aquanet
Hairwalls. How are you supposed to feel matched
Among this? You came in corduroy, like a mirror
 
Of Morgenstern, expecting something,
 
Something else.