shake shake

Shake shake. When I shake such tiny shakes so incessantly is it just one shake? There is a town along the 101

I’ve wanted to go there for a few years, because it is the earthquake capital of the United States. The Earth shakes there every forty minutes. There is evidence to suggest that I was not born in this town. It has no hospital. It isn’t on my birth certificate.

But further evidence suggests that I am this town.

And through my stunned and dilated pupils, Small Things Seem Huge.

The town shakes because it lies directly on a faultline, like a tired girl who can’t run any more, so she lays down in the burrs and sand, survives on succulents, she lies and moves her limp arms only slightly and very infrequently.

I feel inclined to say that this girl is not me, because I am never running. I’m asthmatic and sedentary, the silt at the bottom of a tepid lake, I do not run. But that is

Wrong--
It is not true,

I do, I run,

I run in frantic circles.

And I shake, I shake in frantic fear of loss.