Severed

'I look at you and see him:

your eastern brows, your thick locks,

the way you leave trails of sticky notes

and dot the room with cold teacups;

I see the day he took you from me when

even Margaret Thatcher couldn’t help.

I see it all over

each time you visit.'

She tells her daughter

the same story she’s told her every year:

'He chained me to a bed and then…'

When the daughter removes the lamp

from her room, the room in which she

scatters notes and dots teacups,

her mother tells her:

'This is not your home.'

Her daughter pleads: I came back

years ago, but you still see only

my father’s shadow.'

When the daughter is bedridden, hospital-bound,

her mother, through a throng of spirits

oozing from her outstretched lips, says:

'I must dash to a party because I want to…'

Her daughter mutters: “Have sex.”

And when the daughter moves to a foreign land,

her mother emails every six months;

she does not text because it costs

two pounds:

two pounds of hope.

A mother protects herself from

her love for her child.

She cannot bear loss

or her once defeat

to two palm trees and a sword,

and the guilt

of not rescuing her child

from a man who shackles and beats.

So, she cuts the cord.

Rat's Ass Review, Fall-Winter 2022 and website and Querencia Press Anthology, Fall 2022