One Hundred Years of Solitude

into the dining room, where
the remnants of the birth still
lay: the large pot, the bloody
sheets, the jars of ashes, and
the twisted umbilical cord of
the child on an opened diaper
on the table next to the shears
and the fishline. The idea that
the midwife had returned for
the child during the night
gave him a pause of rest in
which to think. He sank into
the rocking chair, the same
one in which Rebeca had sat