We met at a poetry reading—
you, a Jewish carpenter, like Jesus:
long curls, an air of innocence
and a scent of nothing to offend,
eyes like a cat,
an old convertible Karmann Ghia.
An apartment nearby, a mattress—
what more did I need than this
to select you as the one for whom I would
bleed, someone gentle from whom I wouldn’t
recoil, who would treat me almost as if—
as if it mattered, as if
he saw his privilege—and for me,
at nineteen, to be rid of
this taint, this expectation, this hope
of what? Beauty? The perfect union? Some elevation,
something not dirty, not vulgar, not some throwaway,
but something that felt like love, whatever
I believed that to mean, and a little appreciation
as I got up and walked out, undone, no expectations,
started the engine of my father’s Ford and drove,
the deed done, feeling nothing
but numb.
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.
