Sacramento,

Fire brigade,

Tectonic soil’s begun to shake

Twenty-eighteen, August Eighth,

Tiny heartbeat, tiny aches.

Sacramento,

Wayward town,

Tectonic city coming down

Early summer, rose-thorn crown

Round grey eyes on sunken brown

Trembling fingers, wrathful frown.

Sacramento,

Richter Nine,

These tectonic dreams of mine,

Tie them up with baling twine,

Go the distance, walk the line,

Creeping poison ivy vine,

Cutting losses, warning sign.

Sacramento,

Metal crane,

Can you fix tectonic pain?

Take a beam, ignore the rain,

Cold vigilance a weathervane,

Tectonic wounds down every lane,

Doesn’t matter, twelfth or main,

Moon a crescent, wax and wane.

Sacramento,

Inside out,

Tectonic world consumed by doubt.

Tell me what you shake about—

Crunch and drop and thud and shout,

Give us rain or give us drought,

Be a map, a well-worn route,

Be at least a set amount,

Cruelest mistress, leave without.

Sacramento,

Richter Ten,

When will earthquakes come again?

Mother of tectonic men

No sooner comes your mercy than

Shining, crashing, heartbreak when

All your priesthood cries amen.

Mightier than sword and pen

Standing in the lion’s den,

Final countdown, bitter end.

Sacramento,

Dirty game,

East coast, West coast, all the same.

Shore to shore I scream my name

One tectonic fickle dame

What’s your target, what’s your aim?

Will I always take your blame?

Set my inner world aflame

Shattered plated dreams became

Magma ridges, lava shame

Shadows passing, claim to fame.

Sacramento,

Twenty-fifth.

Eardrums thrum to Aerosmith.

Tectonic, platonic, high-horse haughty,

Earthquakes no longer feel

So foreign to my body.