Mom in the earthquake
if you only knew
what I do
but listen here’s a
scrap of paper that might remind you.
I could never run far enough
fast enough,
falling on the escalator grate,
and she’s almost
always there too late
but there to grab me
and catch those bloodied knees
I couldn’t avoid. She lived in Beverly Hills,
working as an extra.
With her several agents
looking for work in the movies and game shows
at age 70 when the earthquake struck
the church across the street
its steeple toppling
she never mentioned it
on the phone she later told me she
would have surely fallen out of bed
had she owned a bed,
she, sleeping on the floor
with nowhere to go,
this the winding down
but who knew
her last days in California
a place she’d been happy or
free at least
dreaming of the long ago
when she was in her model years
and about to expatriate herself
to Arabia.
