—for S.

I remember the movie "The Crack
in the World" began with a local event,
the way our terrible, cataclysmic year

began with your back going out.
The classic Hollywood soundstage rip
signified the bedrock split.

Time for the blonde to run in circles toward
the muscular scientist, as the crack spread
and swallowed the screaming girls,

the tough guys manning the dams,
whole model train towns. I mean L.
committed suicide, my parents died, we threw

betrayal in the mix, I mean we cried ourselves
to sleep for months. We knew our science
fiction and what came next, bought

a convertible and drove top down to Lake Crescent
huddled in mittens and hats, outrunning
the rending roads to our last resort.

Where highway 101 descends, beyond
our open roof, the sparkling lake flooded
the sky with blue. Vine maples blazed

their fiery remnants and we drove
through the sunlight pierced and undone,
a flash of red riving the highway.

I was the last woman, you were
the last man alive. I mean we were
the first, like Adam and Eve, poised

on a piece of our broken world.

Volume 1, Issue 1, 2006