Betsy Mars

DOUBLE JEOPARDY


You look up from my chest,
I can’t say
breast after all
you’re a cat
but I am reminded
of the embryos
I never nurtured, cast out
 
I had
my reasons, at the time,
 
but now your green
eyes stare in spring,
and I wonder if
if perhaps
 
—I don’t believe
in transmigration—
 
but here you are as if
you’re a part of me,
I’m your mother
 
(and for a minute)
I allow
regret, remembering,
I accept
forgiveness.

       

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet and nascent photographer. She is an editor at Gyroscope Review. Poem publications include ONE ART, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Sheila-Na-Gig. Photos have been in RATTLE’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Redheaded Stepchild, among others. Her most recent book is In the Muddle of the Night with Alan Walowitz.

   

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