Betsy Bell
Betsy Bell is a longtime justice activist living in Seattle, twice widowed and grandmother to seventeen young adult children. Her anti-war memoir, “Open Borders: A personal story of love, loss and anti-war activism” published in October, 2018 by Epicenter Press, Kenmore, WA recounts her efforts, along with many others, to end the Cold War nuclear weapon build up. Betsy’s focus is on building friendships across international boundaries believing that we will not harm people with whom we share the common love of family and place. Betsy has published several short memoir pieces and many poems in literary journals. Visit Betsy on the web here.
The following work is Copyright © 2025, and owned by Betsy Bell and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
To the Moon
I love rollercoasters, not so much
the new high-tech ones that role you
upside down held by a harness.
The one in Galveston in 1953
when the swim team went to the
Junior Olympics at Rice, spent
two days on the beach, sand fleas
Biting.
The full moon riding low
The ocean lapping the wooden stanchions.
Ludie Harmon sitting next to me
holding my hand, the other hand
gripping the bar.
Up and up, straight into
the night sky, stars snuffed out
diminished by the moon.
That breath-taking instant
when the carriage clatters
to the zenith, then turns a corner
plunges, stomach-in-the-mouth
to the water below.
Probably gone now, declared unsafe.
Tides eight inches higher.
Grayling
It’s the absence that hurts.
Unbearable. Heavy.
The meow that will never come.
Watching his stretched-out body
waiting for his belly to rise
the fur ripple
the tail twitch.
Nothing.
He died leaning into his future
catching one last breath.
The grave will need to be big.
Like him.
Legs outstretched,
two and a half feet from nose to tail
paws an inch and a half wide.
Paws that drew me in
a bleak January day in 2008
when I refused to go home to an
empty house.
At the pound, they sent me to
the kitty-room, cages three levels up
Not that one–too white
Not that one–too timid
Not that one–too furry.
But furry wanted me and
stuck his paw out
took my cheek
pulled me in.
No life left in those paws
I had to dig a big hole.
The hole in my chest
cannot be filled.
Jennifer Hyde Dracos-Tice
Jennifer Hyde Dracos-Tice has poems in Witness, Crab Orchard Review, Psaltery & Lyre, SWWIM, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, Lodged in the Belly, was published in 2024 by Main Street Rag. A long-time high school English teacher with literature degrees from Brown and Indiana-Bloomington, she lives with her wife in Florida. Visit her on the web here.
The following work is Copyright © 2025, and owned by Jennifer Hyde Dracos-Tice and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Resurrecting My Bad-Ass Aunt: An Elegy
To Lynn (1951-2025)
Walk with me down the rock-strewn path
you had cut into the clay and flaking slate
from your cabin to the Etowah, winking
at us through fingers of rhododendron green.
Push away weeds topped with yellow blooms, taller
than you, now a bit stooped but still strong, knobby
walking stick in hand. Who am I
kidding. I should say, shout
to me as you roar past, two wheels
taunting the edge of this steep path,
gun that ATV as you gouge
down the precipice, white
hair blowing, breasts
bouncing in your tank top,
spin to a sloppy stop in the mud
from last night’s rain. Oh
stand in your cut-offs, wave
to me with both arms, a bottle
for us each, call me Jen-Jen,
pull the two broken loungers
from behind the woodpile, bump
them, grating, onto the pebble bank
mid-river, fools-gold glinting,
kick into the current, splash
your bare, bruise-free
beautiful legs.
