Elegy with Aftershocks, Late and Soon by Jennifer Richter

for Jon Tribble (1962-2019) and Allison Joseph

“I just had my seismic sense implants removed [from my feet]. I’ve been sensing
earthquakes for the last 7 years … and I’m now feeling phantom earthquakes.”
—Moon Ribas, Facebook, 6/19/19

Some believe the earth is a big body
that shakes sometimes like ours with
fever or seizure or the rare tremor of
its heart we think we can predict we
think we can prepare but in the end
it’s the body that decides three days
after you’d gone a west coast quake
rose from miles below you always
felt that deeply that strongly maybe
for those few like you at some point
the world is too much with them
a woman with wide wise eyes like
your wife’s tells the news Before the
shaking what woke me sounded like a
door slamming like someone just left
then she sighs Something is shaking
all the time now but maybe it’s just me

Jennifer Richter’s two poetry collections have both been named Oregon Book Award Finalists: her second book, No Acute Distress, was chosen by Major Jackson; her first, Threshold, by Robert Pinsky. She teaches in Oregon State University’s MFA program and has new work forthcoming in ZYZZYVA. Find her online at http://jenniferrichterpoet.com.