Regina Gort-Betances - (Mother) Bear

Regina Gort-Betances’ “(Mother) Bear” is a wild and mournful study of loss and grief, written on a canvas of bone, blood, and root. Feral and instinctual motherhood is on display, even after mortality and hollowness edges in like a blade.

(Mother) Bear

———-(Stay away from the high river banks this time of year.) Father warned.

But all summer I pursued it fur hind through thickets. Damp black coat———-pawed
———-down birch branches, stumbling toward the sandstone riverbed.
——————–Bee buzz echo overhead.

I kept following even after what I found———-discarded
———-in the meadow. A fleshy lump in a fluid-filled sac.
The remains the crows and coyote found, too.

———-My own swollen ankles
less nibble, sore breast pains—————concealed

———-(Cleanse yourself of un-holiness, become useful to the Master to do only good.) Father prayed.

The bear submerged in the river’s murky water. Red ribbons streamed
over rocks. Black claws splashed, mitts to muzzle, as if crying.

Wringing out blood-soaked sheets, I cried, too.

———-(The wicked are punished.) Father whispered.

now it’s too late
——————–to mate again. Still you dig

a den into the mossy earth.
——————–But after hibernation,
—————————————-you won’t wake nursing.

But what was your sin?

Tearing apart his hives, devouring——–each honey.

Regina Gort-Betances

Regina Gort-Betances is a retired chef who prefers thimbleberries to huckleberries. She grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where fiddleheads, chanterelles and skinny dips were abundant. She now lives in Puerto Rico, the island of her heritage and in the bounty of mango trees and sea turtle snorkeling. Regina’s first collaborative poem was published in North Dakota Quarterly. She has been subsequently published in Rova Magazine, Deep Wild Journal and The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism. instagram:@reggieinrincon reginagort.com