October 2016
Betty Lies
bettylies@verizon.net
For most of my life I have taught—every age from infants to adults—and plan to continue. Poetry is my love, and I’ve published three collections, but also three books of prose. I live in Princeton, New Jersey, where I am a member of the Cool Women Poets and U.S. 1 Poets (the country’s longest-continuing poetry collective). As the senior poetry editor of U.S. 1 Worksheets, I get the pleasure of meeting many new poetic voices from all over the country.

​The Cliff’s Edge
 
 
I thought the rain would never stop.
Grey sky loomed like an enemy
the day we heard our future told.
Inside: an office, cold and white,
 
outside: sky loomed, grey enemy.
It echoed what had chilled my heart,
that office, sterile, cold and white,
and lonely as an empty room.
 
It echoed what had chilled my heart:
that you were ill and you would die
as lonely as an empty room,
as surely as the sun goes down.
 
Well, you were ill and you would die,
and there was nothing more to say,
as surely as the sun goes down.
We both were far too stunned to cry,
 
and there was nothing more to say,
that day we heard our future told,
and I was far too sad to cry.
I thought the rain would never stop.
©2016 Betty Lies
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