Before the quake, I barely saw them.
Now I speed beneath their arches praying,
“Wait! Don’t squash me! Please!”
Houses are heaps of concrete, brick,
and wood waiting to fall. Underground
garages are tombs, open for business.
Jolted off my eyes, my blinders lie
under spilled books, smashed picture frames,
aquariums’ saber shards, doomed fish,
frogs, and turtles flipping on the floor.
Everything’s lethal—power lines, eucalyptus trees,
the earth itself, its many fissures tensed
to split. Our flesh is so burnable, cuttable;
bones, so twistable, crushable; veins,
like cheap loudspeakers, always about to blow.
As for love—who can we trust, with hearts
fragile as China brides? The new men
my fiancée meets—Fred, Robert, Jerry,
Terry, Kent—link arms, and arch over our heads.
“Don’t dawdle,” I want to scream at her.
“Hold my hand tight! Pedal to the metal. Go!”
Originally Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 2.
