Standing As Instructed
My mother still
under her sky-blue shroud,
with her head turned to the side.
I lie down beside her.
With my face close to hers,
hers unstirring,
I take her face in my hands.
Her cheeks, two peaches
left on the ground
after the frost,
grow warm and her eyes
open—her blue-green eyes
so rich with enigma.
She smiles
and the dew
of her single breath
awakens the closeness
we never had
and that I find
only in a poem.
My mother still
under her sky-blue shroud.
I stand
ten feet away,
as the funeral director
has instructed,
for reasons of sanitation.
Summer Vacation In Europe
Light glints off
my father’s ivory suit
in pointed rays like swords
that outshine even
the intense summer sun.
Thus armed, he orders
the day’s essentials
from restaurants, hotels.
I long for his gleam.
My mother’s is hazy,
dustier,
as she explicates
walls of paintings and frescoes
in every museum and church.
I linger behind,
a reluctant tourist
in the dappled region
of age fourteen,
where, as in the arched womb
of a huge cathedral,
the perpetual dawn or twilight
smells of stone and mystery,
and glimmers flutter
high above
like white birds
caught under the ceiling.
by Betsy Martin
Betsy Martin works at Skinner House Books in Boston. She studied at Harvard University, where she earned an AB in English and American literature; the Pushkin Institute in Moscow and the Middlebury Russian School, where she graduated with an MA in Russian language; and Brown University, where she received an MA in Russian literature. When Betsy happens by a window in her busy schedule, she enjoys bird watching with her husband and playing the piano. Betsy’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Alembic, Assisi Journal, Barely South Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly (Best of the Net nomination), Existere, Front Range Review, Gemini Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Helix, Limestone Journal, Louisville Review, Magnapoets, Minetta Review, Organs of Vision and Speech, Pirene’s Fountain, Sanskrit, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, and Weber—The Contemporary West.
