They told my grandmother
that it was not her language
to speak, that she had been born
to a different vernacular,
not the Fino-Ugric blasphemy
of the few. No anya or
nagymama for her.
At school, she recited the plight
of Romanian peasants, at home,
she lived it. When she walked
the cow to the pastures, she lived it.
When she mothered her youngest brother,
she lived it. She let slip only once,
when she buried a doll in her father’s knapsack,
sent it to war with the windmills,
to the certain death of ragdolls.
“Viszlát, Kiralina,” in the whisper
children set aside for misdeeds
and prayer.
Maria Cohut
Maria Cohut is a writer of Romanian origin who adopted Britain as her second home
well over a decade ago. She is haunted by questions of identity,
belonging, displacement, and what makes us human. Her writing has
appeared in the Borders & Belonging anthology (Cephalopress, 2022), The Hyacinth Review, The Hellebore, and The Other Side of Hope: Journeys in Refugee and Immigrant Literature, among others. Her first poetry chapbook, Spatter Pattern
(back room poetry, 2023), explores the issue of gender violence by
reimagining detective fiction tropes. She has two poetry books upcoming
in 2025: Skin Me Alive/ Écorche-moi vivante, (bilingual English/French, La Crypte), and Multiple Exposures, (Flight of the Dragonfly).
