Poem 326

The title is a word I learnt from the feature film The Two Jakes (sequel to Chinatown) – another name for a seismic tremor …

Temblor

You sent me a letter
with an earthquake in it

there was an earthquake
just now
                  and an arrow circling back
to something that had started
as an a
               and branched off

               all the power of a planet
               in a blue squiggle

I gazed at it
                         remembered
when I first took your letter
out of the box
                             how I trembled