I remember the earthquake of ’86
I was too young
to remember
but I do

I was drooling over
this toy boy
made in china
it could crawl on all fours
and I could drool over it

I remember the carpet moved
I remember that carpet very well
cause everyone had the same one
till we all changed them in 1999
to oval ones in dire tones
and edgy geometrical patterns

when that carpet moved
when the building jolted back and forth
a few times
it burned a blurry image
into my memory:
toy boy slowly slipping away
then coming back
some kind of inertia
pushing me
after him
away from him
the earth was shaking with certainty
in 1986
in 2019
I’m shaking
too

if this was a triptych I’d be banned
for being

cyclically
aesthetically
technically
incorrect


but it’s not
so who cares
who cares
it was easier drooling over
toy boys
than boy toys?

we’ll always have inertia.