Like Schrödinger’s Cat by Betsy Mars

Like Schrödinger’s Cat

he both was and wasn’t
dead, when we walked by,
children in tow, and he curled up,
blocked the sidewalk, either passed out

drunk from too much the night
before, or maybe just gone,
slipped away in plain sight,
while the tourists, all of us,

came and went, looked away,
intent on beignets and chicory coffee,
powdered sugar mounded on our plates.
He was still on the ground

when we returned from the Café du Monde,
vampires gone to bed, saxophones resting
in their velvet cases. He lay undisturbed
in the same position, not dead we thought,

though we didn’t check for breath,
but a composition, a still life, or not.
We skirted him, discussed the day to come,
decided he’d had too much,

shook our heads, walked on
to catch the trolley, preferred to think
he was still in the box, on this side
of life, for the children’s sake

we kept our pace, we didn’t slow,
just another man we‘d never know.

*

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, photographer, and assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Recent poems can be found in Minyan, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily. Her photos have appeared online and in print, including one which served as the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge prompt in 2019. She has two books, Alinea, and her most recent, co-written with Alan Walowitz, In the Muddle of the Night. In addition, she also frequently collaborates with San Diego artist Judith Christensen, most recently on an installation entitled “Mapping Our Future Selves.”