We drove, riding on our parents’
intention, and opportunity,
felt the road rise and fall, like breath.
The fatal attraction of backroads,
the undertow,
the longstanding allure of highways.
The wind blew, oceans
of wheat, waterfalls fell,
mountains rose, engines
of forward momentum we were
resisting gravity, we pushed
and were born, borne toward
the Pacific rolling, the end
of land, and now we look back, listen:
hear our parents, siblings, selves
through the years,
through the body’s past-seeking
ears, through the walls
and skin we’ve shed,
we gather our former selves.
is a prize-winning poet and photographer, an editor at Gyroscope Review, and publisher of an occasional anthology through Kingly Street Press. Her writing has appeared widely online and in numerous print anthologies, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Betsy’s photos have been published in Rattle (as the Ekphrastic Challenge prompt), in Redheaded Stepchild, and as a cover image for Spank the Carp.
Her chapbooks and small press publications (Kingly Street Press) are available on Amazon. In addition to her chapbook collaboration with Alan Walowitz (In the Muddle of the Night, 2021), she recently worked with artist Judith Christensen on an installation in San Diego which is part of an ongoing exploration of memory, identity, home, and family. Betsy also works as a substitute teacher, and as a cat wrangler in her spare time.
