Betsy Mars

Betsy Mars
is a poet, photographer, and small publisher.  Her work has recently appeared in San Pedro River Review, Verse-Virtual, Better Than Starbucks, and Sheila-Na-Gig. Her chapbook, Alinea, was released in January 2019, and In the Muddle of the Night, with Alan Walowitz, is due later in 2020.

Broca’s Area

Even in my dream I’m searching
for words, cursor hovering
over the blank page.

I wake up, try to write it down,
to pick up where the dream left off,
but again it slinks away
to the inner folds
of my grasping brain.

I wait for sleep to come,
hoping all the words
are still lurking
in the shaded playground
of my frontal lobe,

ready to come running out,
a surge of chemicals
screaming olly olly oxen free!

All that’s left

Some frozen spinach, a clove
of garlic, inch of ginger –
the prick of needle on my finger.

All that’s left are empty roads,
quiet streets, clearing skies –
maybe half a loaf of rye.

So far what’s left is the touch
of a nose from my cat –
not my friends, can’t have that,

Or my face, memory of its terrain,
and the choice of what to wear –
no longer really care.

But what’s left is time, infinite
and preposterous, for now –
we wait, each day, learning how.