Chrissie DyBuncio

Earthquake

The gnomes inside the redwood trees shred
The secrets whispered into the trunks and I tell them of eating
ripe plums in front of you, the red juice breaking through taut flesh,
bleeding down my neck.  

I think to the West.
How I could lick my own skin
and it would taste like the Pacific,
and that my upper lip smelled like sand
and old crustaceans when I came out of a bath.
There, it was possible to sleep in blankets of dirt
and still wake whispering pleas to stay
and let the dew bathe us.
.
So I sleep: dream of swinging
like Jane into the diamond pool
of summer, but seize: interrupted by my bones
shattering into shards.
Petals of bougainvillea shaken out after a day of heavy rain.

The ground hurls and moans, forcing roofs to split.
Nana can’t sit up straight anymore, her chimney fell
like stale bread on her shoulders, she doesn’t want to wake.
But the streets continue to dance, rumbling back and forth in jitterbug style.
Stars entangle as easy as Christmas lights around New Year’s.

Now when I spit I singe the snow pink.  

California,
she anticipates the betrayal of this continent,
her fault line genuflects to the east
three times before the cock crows.

And I, I can only beg for some litany.