Umbilical - Thimble Magazine
Umbilical
March 2020
There’s a plague on outside
No one believes in touching any more
Across the continent capable of light speed
my mother’s voice
finds me at the sink
How many times have we laid eyes
laid hands on each other
Three hours south my daughter holds a photo
delivered by echoes
alone on the table in her paper gown
Blizzard in a jar
storm of cells
and the tiny head bent as if under their weight
My mother asks for news
I triangulate
daughter mother me the distance we have to go
Fields outside wet with green alarm
Earth siphoning off whatever it needs to grow
When the time comes
I won’t slide easily into the universal palm
Even though I once believed the dead go on living
Even though I walked tonight
to feel swaddling twilight on my skin
Like an infant fed and soothed
Like this woman at her sink
two fists
tears feeding the drain’s mouth
- Published in Thimble Literary Magazine Vol. 5 No. 2 Fall 2022