Oni Buchanan

JUST THE OTHER DAY

What’s left for me here really? Not even a broken

badminton racket Not even an archery target

knocked down by a bear Just the other day

I was sobbing in my chair When was that exactly? Just

the other day I was stripping in the driver’s seat

parked at the beach and basking in my sun bucket

On the sand I thought I could fall asleep and have

a dream or two Sun streaming unwillingly through

my eyelids Would I be me when I woke again?

Just the other day I walked to the ocean’s edge and filled

an empty shell with water then held it high at the waves’

breaking seam and dumped it out again Hey water

Want to know the odds? One quarter of you droplets

will roll straight back into the sea from the momentum

of the heightened pour One quarter of you will sink

into the sand absorbed One quarter will be reclaimed by a

grasping wave And the last of you will evaporate

straight into the sky So when do I consent to the ascension?

A flock of gulls gathers in a tidal puddle each screeching

the exact same pitch The way they hurl the note out of their

throats how doesn’t it tear them open? Just the other day

I saw a plover stand entirely nonchalant just centimeters

from where the seam of breaking waves could reach him

If someone ever sets a wager to stand as close as possible

to the incoming tide where you’re disqualified if your feet

get even one molecule of water wet In that case I’d find

a plover and I’d say “I’ll stand where that guy is standing!”

ONI BUCHANAN is the author of four books of poetry: Time Being (forthcoming from Kuhl House Poets/University of Iowa Press), Must a Violence, Spring, and What Animal. She is the founder and director of Ariel Artists, a management company designed for innovative artists who are expanding and recontextualizing classical music for the 21st century. In 2020, Buchanan launched Ariel AVANT, an open call for the best artistic ideas in the classical music ecosystem, providing an industrywide platform for concert presenters, thought leaders, and Ariel Artists staff and roster artists to join forces in pushing forward the evolution of classical music as an art form.