Seven Year Quake
       

This year's quake was centered in the body seven years ago
replaced by the body now

"One body makes us think of another, and a giant crack in the
earth makes our sentences long," said a resident on earth, lifting
a vessel with her heart, opening windows with her lungs, and
shouldering burdens, cell by cell by cell by cell

"If we breathe, we are alive, and if we are alive, all things are
possible;' said a geologist with the USGS who celebrates
Ground Hog Day every day, "we don't tend to think of it this
way"

And eyes moving in their orbits, hip joints rotating in their
sockets

Resident Endrasa Stein, who stood a short distance away from
her body when the quake unfolded, told reporters "Emergency
is emergency is emergency is emergency"

The quake struck in evening as tenor and vehicle thinned
to breaking, the dying stars not resembling carbon turning
crystalline beneath the ground

The quiet mind-blowing quake caused shaking on a cellular
level, and generated the most imagery since the news that the
majority of the human body is composed of water

The epicenter was located in the vicinity of happy hour, where
four out of five trivia questions were answered correctly while
only half-listening and eating fish tacos: Genesis, the Galapagos,
the Dalai Lama, Frida Kahlo

Eye, neighbor to ear, into heart, becomes breath

A Utah seismologist and divorcee who identified as a widow
walked out of her office, down the hall, past the cafe and into
the atrium where she looked past a skeleton displayed inside its
glass case and forward to meeting her newest body.

Tweet

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