Betsy Mars is an LA based poet and educator whose love of language and culture was influenced by her parents (a professor and a social worker), and two formative years in Brazil during her early childhood. She is a passionate traveler, mother of adult children, and animal lover, and spends her spare time futilely trying to maintain some semblance of cleanliness in her household. Her work has recently appeared in Tuck Magazine, The Rise Up Review, and the California Quarterly.

Once you’ve worked in a morgue,

smelled the putrid scents,

inhaled the exhales of dead flesh

and stomach contents, opened

mouths clamped in rigor mortis

and closed unseeing eyes,

can you be light? Can you illuminate

the cause and time of death?

Each blue body your future,

confronting and affronting your nostrils

and dreams. A cold slap in the face of denial,

and anger, and all those other

stages of grief which are just

stepping stones to acceptance,

as the world empties of the ones you love.

My father was my thesaurus;

when he died all the synonyms

went with him. There was no sadness,

only grief. No worry, just despair.

The antonyms went, too,

being naturally contrary.

What use was there for the opposite

of failure or stagnation or sparklers

when there was no one left to see

them lit? Who could find the right word

for poetry or show me the language

in the instrumental, describe the fine burn

of old tequila on the tongue,

and how many words remain for laughter.