“Faults are cracks in the earth's crust along which there is movement. These can be massive (the boundaries between the tectonic plates themselves) or very
small. If tension builds up along a fault and then is suddenly released, the result is an earthquake.”

— The National Park Service

we cracked open her       tectonic chest
expected the soft yolk       of congealed blood but instead
found a sticky       residue of steaming tar
I tried         to brace myself against stormy weather 
shutter in but it came from deep underground and shattered
everything     there should have been a warning 
you’d have thought yet we still attempted the mend
found that steel         sutures wouldn’t stay and the 
wound bled and bled       until ravens fled from its gaping mouth
shifting like a               darkening bruise against an open-skinned sky—

 ask and I’ll tell you—        I’d rather
know the unknown               than speak of inevitability 
I could have come prepared          brought a pie 
but I was unbound on this         try 
knowing sadness             the way crows mourn their murders
and then suddenly       take flight one by one into
the screaming night    leaving me to wait 
for the distant cries
            of a drowning sea—