She anticipated creeping, faithful years with Jason -- this wife behind the mogul. Time branded them both as heads grayed and worries webbed their faces. Birthing reshaped her torso: Pregnancies mapped her calves. Secretly her spouse turned chameleon, found a new bride – one to breathe youth into shriveled lungs. Why was the sheriff on her front steps? “Sign here.” She unfolded solemn nonsense. Startled, then desolate she could neither eat nor sleep. The ancient bitterness of abandoned wives drove terrible mechanics of madness. No longer troubled by youth’s desires revenge clawed her wame, poisoned her thoughts. A stranger appeared in her mirror speaking magic, incantations, and formulas, solutions and solutions and solutions. If she hid her children beneath the church floor their bellies would no longer rumble and their mouths cease to bicker. They’ll find immortality psychosis promised. She never raved so none noticed until the children were gone.
Betsy Packard is a nontraditional student pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing – Poetry at the University of Kentucky. Disabled since 1991, she is now 68 and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. Much of her poetry is in the genre of feminist revisionist mythology. She has had poetry and creative nonfiction published in Atherton Review, Her Limestone Bones, Witches & Pagans, and Wax Poetry & Art. She is the 2021 recipient of the King Library Press Poetry Contest.