Wet and moonless, the Japanese maple drips her pigment
onto a desolate, metal halide-lit stretch of road, until
pink-red rivulets parade ostentatiously toward
the storm drain. All is quiet: shutters closed, curtains
drawn, the still air holding its breath; now and then,
an owl grows bold, making a furtive hoot as though
the darkness was a mic and he were asking,
Is this thing on? And not even owl-lovers acknowledge
the call, preferring to lie awake and pretend to be asleep.
History is full of scenes like this, of course; but it’s one thing
to read history and another to live it. I saw a neighbor slam
her door so hard, the lock is still trembling: every tickle
of breeze could be a black car carrying black-jacketed bodies
obeying some force they themselves do not apprehend.
We’ve had earthquakes here the past two Sundays,
the most recent centered 8.9 miles below our house,
down where all is heat and pressure. Strange, how you hear
the shaking before you feel it, how, rattled and nervous,
you sink into bed like the maple’s roots into the earth,
knowing you too are a brave riot of color—that when
the Big One comes, you won’t be able to hide anyway.