Poetry: Selections from Betsy Martin

Not From Sun

we whales swim toward the turquoise south

 

then glide back to the lapis north

 

often just the two of us

 

our home is each other

 

and the layers

 

from pellucid down to pitch

 

down where light-forms glow

 

not from sun

 

dark upon light or light upon dark

 

so ripely puzzling

Great, Sullen, Mauve

They fired God a while back,

and others moved in to fill the gap.

 

The most awe-inspiring

are the leviathans that swim with the wind.

 

Great, sullen, mauve,

they rush along in sky pods,

 

snapping limbs,

scattering hair.

 

They buffet your cheeks

with a rosy hope,

but when you look up too much,

lodge grit in your eyes.

 

I love them

for their integrity,

their purple grace.

 

On a smiley-face, blue-sky day,

the air is empty.

Bread Alone

The meat

is mostly crusts of fat.

 

The milk had its cream skimmed off

long ago, higher up,

 

and languishes in little cartons

on the counter, sour.

 

The saleswomen are bitter.

 

But the bread, the black bread,

is the land itself.

 

It tastes of coriander,

molasses, wheat, and rye,

caraway, ballet, War

and Peace, Pushkin, Glinka, Borodin.

 

The whole heavy loaf

is enough to live on.

Living On Layers

Seems it’s always snowing here,

not storms, but constant mist

of fine crystals drifting

lightly.

 

By spring, the snow and ice

are easily two feet thick,

and who knows what all is down there—

rubies, poems, teacups with flowers,

battlefields of wounded or dead.

 

The driveways to behemoth apartment blocks

are shoveled by old widows in headscarves

with frayed overcoats the color of oatmeal,

bulky bodies bent

into captive sculptures.

At traffic circles, statues of Lenin preside.

 

Up and up, it deepens

because streets are never plowed—

people rumble over the layers

in their small, agile cars.

 

They’re used to living on layers,

dirt and grease graying

what began with pure beauty.

Betsy Martin’s chapbook, Whale’s Eye, was published by Presa Press in June 2019. Her poem "To Missoula" was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, The Briar Cliff Review, California Quarterly, Cloudbank, Diverse Voices Quarterly (Best of the Net nomination), Green Hills Literary Lantern, Juked, Louisville Review, The MacGuffin, Midwest Quarterly, Pennsylvania English, The Round, Slab, THINK, Third Wednesday, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Wrath-Bearing Tree, and many others. Betsy worked for many years at Skinner House Books in Boston. She also has advanced degrees in Russian language and literature and has lived in Moscow.