Seismic Debris, by Taylor Graham

Seismic Debris

Just look at her face – that crack
in the wall. Not every quake
is geo-logic. But he’s on the other side
looking the opposite direction.
Maybe he felt the tremor,
a shaking underfoot that made him
sit down to consider. This crack
in a wall still standing,
but see how it’s bow’d and slanted,
leaning. It isn’t structural,
it can’t bear weight. He’ll have to
think about that. She’d
have to loosen that dead grip on air –
her fingers a small bird’s foot
with no branch to clasp in the after-
shocks. Either he or she
could walk around this fragment
of wall; the two of them
are all that holds it in place.

Taylor Graham