Apocryphal Memory of the Night We Met
BY ELIZABETH ONUSKO
Energy can only be compacted to the point where
it starts to hate itself,
so I ran until I collapsed.
As I laid, panting, in the grass,
the sky darkened into a pond
pricked by constellations of koi gasping for air.
It looked as if they were praying to me, which was strange
because I also wanted answers. Trees palsied
though there was no wind. Beginnings often take
the form of tremors: foreshock, shaky hand,
contraction. Singing overlaid the rumbling,
which was seismic — the singing was really
screaming — if I were a stone,
the blows would have broken me open
and revealed a hollow lined with chalcedony,
startling us both.
