August Quake
       

Today's quake was centered in summer's end, in flowers
dissolving their fireworks back to a single stem

"We've no reason to be surprised," said USGS beneath a moon
sharpening her horn

Residents near the epicenter witnessed sprawling highway
mirages evaporate into dotted lines

In aftershocks, calendar squares circled the wagons separating
grasshoppers from ants

City officials with mild hands and weakness for euphemism
speculated, "summer would want us to celebrate not mourn her
passing"

A peace trainer wondered which was sadder—to tear down
your own web every evening, or capitulate it to the night

Southern California seismologists paused to choose their words
carefully before commenting on the logic and heat generated
from arms folded across the chest

Icelandic seismologists who had all winter to reflect said
you couldn't pay them to move away from giant green lights
streaking across the sky

One resident endured a personal aftershock of exponential
magnitude triggered by her father never looking at her, or her
sisters, or mother as if they were beautiful and precious flowers

A dog adopted at the end of summer forgets all other summers,
every day dissolves its reflection by drinking from the fish pond

A dog brought to closing night of the free outdoor Shakespeare
festival watches flowering vines thin to power cords during the
final soliloquy, charms all o'erthrown

"Where could you go that's not already gone," say mourning
doves to each other tightening their belts, and "better to have
never summered at all."

Tweet

Copyright © 2018 Jacqueline Lyons All rights reserved
from Earthquake Daily
The New Michigan Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission