Two Poems by Betsy Mitchel Martinez

Two Poems: Betsy Mitchell Martinez stay-at-home abecedarian Abdication, it turns out, is not a silver bullet. I still wake before six to punch cucumbers into hearts, sort uniform, delicate berries into bentos over a loop of Elsa letting go, as if the hard part is walking out. Forget the snow, I want to tell her. Put on your gloves and absorb that storm like the rest of us—moistureheavy, hair pulled back in a knot of irritation, hunting the fridge for hummus cups, the right flavor of juice box. That ice palace in the far corner of the mind is only a missing kitten icepack wedged in the back of the freezer, loved and forgotten, meowing all night from behind the bag of dino nuggets until I startle awake, orient my ear to an imagined cry. Or perhaps it’s real, perhaps someone has an urgent question that can’t wait till dawn, a bloody nose, a sock to readjust. And someone needs to hear that bedtime story again, the one about a dog crossing the electric fence to get her tennis ball. It’s a familiar punchline running charged under the permafrost of lives not lived, a high-pitched vibration buckled in for the ten-minute drive to the Albuquerque Whole Foods, boundary wire snug in its xeric bed, transmitter lit with corrections singing yes, singing here I am while I stand buzzing at a sale display, admiring the Zia sun of seltzer boxes, easing a clementine ray from the black cherry sky.