Triskaidekaphobia

So many hearts and none
anatomical: small boxes
and pendants, ceramic
and amethyst, fused glass,
and silver, gold. Paper-
weights, jackets festooned
in pink and hotter pink.
Mugs. Mugs. Mugs.
And my mother’s heart

when on that night
I dropped, water bursting
before its time. Three weeks
early, she held me in one more day,
confined in her narrow hospital bed,
birthing a story as well as me,
my life framed in hearts and love,
or at the very least, the idea
of it, a messenger delivering me
arrows that graze me every birthday.

*

Rainy Day Box

Some days, when I feel more child
than adult, raining or not, I remember

that box of special things my parents
put aside— a cardboard chest

holding macaroni, glitter, string—
that they withheld on sunny days,

a child’s treasure. I lift the lid
of memory seeking what I need, find

space and time.

*

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, a photographer, and publishes an occasional anthology through Kingly Street Press. She is an assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. Poetry publications include Rise Up Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, New Verse News, Sky Island, and Minyan. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. Betsy’s photos have been featured in RATTLE’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Spank the Carp, Praxis, and Redheaded Stepchild. She is the author of Alinea and co-author of In the Muddle of the Night with Alan Walowitz.