Earthquake Myth
/Monica Cure
In the moment I turned
from the kitchen to the hallway
I was shaken so violently
by a longing for you
that I leaned into
the doorframe, a reaction
maybe from earthquake training.
Palms against the post, I felt
somehow closer to you
as if an arch-eyebrowed god
in his version of pity
had transformed you into
the upright figure of stability
upon which everything hinges.
My forehead against
the back of my hand,
I exhaled slowly
and the lacquered wood
sent my breath back to me
like an approaching kiss –
or like knowing,
surrounded by rubble,
I’d survived.
Author’s Note: I wrote this poem as I was transitioning from living in one earthquake-prone city, Los Angeles, to another, Bucharest, and it was a time of great instability. The “myth” in the title is multi-layered. Many people still think the safest place to be in an earthquake is standing in a doorway. The myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses often involve transformations that are acts of poetic justice. We also have our own personal myths about who we are and what we can or can’t live without, which also shift.
Monica Cure is a Romanian-American poet, writer, and translator currently based in Bucharest. She is a two-time Fulbright grantee and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Plume, Rust + Moth, The Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, UCity Review, and elsewhere. She can be found on Twitter @MonicaCure or www.monicacure.com.
