'Unravelling': A Poem by Betsy Mars

UNRAVELLING

He sat on my lap innocent

under the needle

or hook as I knitted

or crocheted.

He lay by my breast

nursing or needing

the touch of my hand

as it flew at its work

always productive

the garment took shape

& I marveled at its beauty

when I noticed the sheen

was the color of his fine

flaxen hair; he had

fallen asleep

and I loosened the rows

undoing my work

which never again had such weight

while his hair never forgot

its former shape.

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Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, photographer, educator, and recently took up publishing as well, releasing her first anthology, Unsheathed: 24 Contemporary Poets Take Up the Knife (Kingly Street Press), in October 2019. She was educated at the University of Southern California, and occasionally puts what she learned to use. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, The Ekphrastic Review, RATTLE (photography), and numerous other online journals and print anthologies. In January 2019 her first chapbook, Alinea, was published by Picture Show Press.