Vanishing Interior

By Suzanne Buffam b. 1972 Suzanne Buffam

Little patches of grass disappear

In the jaws of lusty squirrels

Who slip into the spruce.

Cars collapse into parts.

Spring dissolves into summer,

The kitten into the cat.

A tray of drinks departs from the buffet

And voilà! the party’s over.

All that’s left are some pickles

And a sprig of wilting parsley on the rug.

When I think of all those

Gong-tormented Mesozoic seas

I feel a ripple of extinction

And blow a smoke ring through the trees.

Soon there will be nothing left here but sky.

When I think about the fact

I am not thinking about you

It is a new way of thinking about you.

Source: The Irrationalist (Canarium Books, 2010)

Biography

Suzanne Buffam was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. She earned an MA in English from Concordia University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poetry collections include Past Imperfect (2005) and The Irrationalist (2010). She has received the CBC Literary Award for Poetry and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

Reviewing The Irrationalist for TheStar.com, poetry columnist Barbara Carey commented that Buffam . . .

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