Callista Buchen

CONTACT:
Website: callistabuchen.com
Email: cmbuchen@gmail.com

BIO:
Callista Buchen is the author of the full-length collection Look Look Look (Black Lawrence Press), and the chapbooks The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press) and Double-Mouthed (dancing girl press). Her work has appeared in Nimrod, RHINO, Jet Fuel Review, Harpur Palate, Puerto del Sol, Fourteen Hills, and many other journals. She holds an MA in literature from the University of Oregon, an MFA from Bowling Green State University, and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kansas. The founder of the Carlsen-Stauffer reading series, she was the Director of Creative Writing at Franklin College in Indiana before returning home to Wisconsin to be closer to family. She lives in the Fox Valley with her husband, children, and two delightful orange cats. 

PUBLICATIONS:
Look Look Look (Black Lawrence Press)
The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press) 
Double- Mouthed (dancing girl press)

Poetry

Bread

In our home, my beloved does
the baking. I have no patience

for proving, no touch for
kneading, for knowing when

enough is enough. But when he
smells like bread, my body

becomes an oven. Sometimes,
there is flour in his hair. Sometimes,

I remember his long-ago
job at the bakery, out on early

morning delivery, how he’d be
home by lunch in a cloud of that

warmth, which never quite washed
away, always a little bit sweet.

Baking is believing things usually
work out. I am not good at feeling

loved, I tell my beloved, who
shapes the dough, who reaches

for me like I am an answer
or a recipe, like he wants me

like I want him. No, he says, when I
take small bites, when I try to make

the bread last a little longer. No,
he says, eat. We’ll make more.

Taking Care

I sit with my grief. I mother it. I hold its small, hot hand. I don’t say, shhh. I don’t say, it is okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes. We crack open bedroom doors, step over the creaks, and kiss the children. We are sore from this grief, like we’ve returned from a run, like we are training for a marathon. I’m with you all the way, says my grief, whispering, and then we splash our face with water and stretch, one big shadow and one small.