May 22, 2021

Umbilica by Louise Mather

Umbilica

a plane of amber

consecrated

sunlight and the zephyr

watched over

the source

of ambience

every thought and moment

and molecule

a garland of

hieroglyphs

a lapse

in existence

as though there was

nothing before

by a wormhole

presumed destroyed

an anemone with

my hands and this face

flooding away

a delicate glissando

we listen to the coasts

the colonnades

ascending the lacuna

bright tether

to far sublime galactic

I could never forget

embroidered now I am

with pieces of you

Louise Mather is a poet from Northern England. You can find her on Twitter @lm2020uk and her work is published or forthcoming in magazines such as Fly on the Wall Press, Streetcake Magazine, The Cabinet of Heed, Versification, Crow & Cross Keys and Lanke Review. She writes about motherhood, ancestry, rituals, endometriosis and mental health, and is editor of the cat-themed anthology Feline Utopia.