rationality a fleeting thing
something lost after the birds
had long since flown
as the telephone lines were still
finding their footing
once when the rattling was nothing
but an inconvenience wearing a trench coat
the six-o-clock news warned us
to anchor our televisions
that a boy had become pinned
between a screen and a hard place
since then I only ever listened with one ear
so I could hear it coming
because you will hear it coming if you are quick
to recognize the throat of the land
gurgling behind hills and under pastures
and some people write the sound to be akin
to a stomach sick with hunger
after the evening has washed over
or the thrashing of a whale’s
largest limb splintering a vessel
and who could blame the creature
still giving us plenty of warning that we
were simply caught in the wrong current
and I must have won the lottery this morning
planted on the veranda
not hypnotized by the caroling
advertisements on television
when my mother tracked the movement
outside weaving between thistles and bulbs
as though a spider
bolting through a web
lunging her knees into trodden soil
her robe damp from the morning not yet lifted
pleading to the mouth of the land
taking in the silence
teething and relentless
shooing a battery of blackbirds away from
branches making a mess of the telephone lines
and if you ask me
I think it sounds like a roaring win
of an opposing team
two fists belting across a chest
a splitting sternum
fractured and puncturing
so here rationality could only ever be
a fleeting thing rolling around
as a marble in our palms
because as her chest fell towards
the throbbing wound my mother
asked me to fetch her sewing kit
as though whatever lay buried
was not yet dead
O
Omori’s Law
