Cutting the Umbilical Cord

In the mornings, you don’t want

to go to school. Your crying sounds

pierce my heart like a sword—I own

no armor, and you are no radio either,

whose volume I can control the way I could

muffle my own sobs in kindergarten for weeks.

My mother should not know.

You beg me to let you stay home; your stomach

tightens and thunders as in a storm, and I am

suddenly four years old, lying in my Málaga bed,

my pillow under my tummy, telling my aunt

she cannot take me to school because I’m sick.

Last night, I dreamed that I had to go back to college

in Granada and leave you behind. One weekend, you

came to visit, and told me that silence had replaced

the humming of my voice. No more laughing

at Mami’s goofy jokes. We hugged, and you clasped

your arms around my waist like the brackets clasping

my cell phone when driving so that it doesn’t fall

and break. I woke up, thrust myself back to the present.

You are almost twelve, and I am forty-eight. Age

does not matter when darkness opens its monstrous

mouth and threatens to eat you alive. You cannot eat

your breakfast. No food I can prepare will calm

your raging hunger for someone to rescue you

from the jaws of darkness. I cannot be

your rescuer, though. You must face the beast,

tame it on your own until you can

scratch light from underneath and can

see that I am here—I’ll always be.

Now I have to leave for work. My breakfast’s piece

of toast lies on the kitchen counter, its sugar

crusting over the melted butter.

---

Mari-Carmen Marín was born in Málaga, Spain, but moved to Houston, TX, in 2003, where she has found her second home. She is a professor of English at Lone Star College—Tomball, and enjoys dancing, drawing, reading, and writing poetry in her spare time. Writing poetry is her comfy chair in front of a fireplace on a stormy winter day.

​Her work has appeared in several places, and her debut poetry book, Swimming, Not Drowning, was published by Legacy Book Press in 2021. Her author website is www.maricarmenmarinauthor.com