December 2023
Betsy Mars
marsfish@aol.com
Bio Note: Given the current state of the world, I think these two are still meaningful to me in that they both address our fragility. We are, at times, especially vulnerable to other humans. At the same time, human connection or mutual recognition as well as the deep, fundamental love we might be fortunate to feel at times give us a glimpse of something less finite than life, and has been a great consolation to me, especially in these later years.

A Fawn Has No Scent

And so, like a deer mother, my parents left me curled up
on the doorsteps, in the flowerbeds, in the rumpus rooms
of others—those with fathers who worked 9-5, 
and stay-at-home mothers who boiled hot dogs, fried bologna
for lunch. I stayed quiet, asleep inside my abandonment. 
My mother went off to feed, to lure away danger, her scent
so strong. I wore her like an invisibility cloak. I was nothing
like a horse, a colt who could get on my feet. I was safe
without human interference.
First published in ONE ART

Ossuary

all our differences melt 
skin stretches and thins 
eyes sink, submerge 
into interior living
as the end nears
we are more alike 
than we seem, surface 
immaterial, foundation
begins to emerge 
what's most solid more obvious
as we get ready to leave 
our bones behind 
would I recognize you 
in an ossuary, would I know
myself, you and I, a pair 
of cast-offs, spirits flown.
First published in Sheila-Na-Gig
©2023 Betsy Mars
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