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 yard
How many times have we laid hands
on each other
Right about now Caroline waits
for a photo
delivered by echoes
alone on the table in her paper gown
Blizzard in a jar
storm of cells
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
Neighborhood lawns wet with green alarm
Mom you have brown hair
a crooked tooth
your love a streaming comet
Forgive me
I left vast doxologies a fossil sea my departure
between us
How do I step across
those years
From three thousand miles
your pull
in swaddling twilight
I’m your infant fed and soothed
I’m the woman crying
a phone pressed to her ear
- Published in Thimble Literary Magazine Vol. 5 No. 2 Fall 2022