EPISODIC TREMOR AND SLIP<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an active volcano, the mountain: Shuksan. We live in an earthquake zone, calm north on the ring of fire. The house is on stilts for the waves, and rats eat tea biscuits and leave on suggestion. \u201cWe will live forever,\u201d you say, meaning them. And the water looks brilliant from here.<\/p>\n
Silver, pellucid, much like the sky.<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
None of us will notice the sunbathers, the tourists trying to surf, the tourists trying to sail. We won\u2019t see the parade of push-pop wrappers scattered in wet sand, we won\u2019t see the cops or the dog watching,<\/p>\n
or the kelp strangling posts of the pier.<\/p>\n
3.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a metaphor,\u201d you say. Sun low, wet rocks roll. Your father never hit you. It was the neighborhood kids who cracked eggs in your hair, it was they who brought rocks, had quick fists. Bullets of blood on your forehead, how the scalp will leech into a collar.<\/p>\n
But then this, too, is no longer true.<\/p>\n
4.<\/p>\n
From one window I can see the water and from the other I can see the mountains. These are not real mountains, this is not real water, these are not real windows. I hold your hand and our upstairs disappears.<\/p>\n
I think of particles exploding, coming back together like some physics experiment I don\u2019t know the name for. \u201cLarge Hadron Collider,\u201d you say.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not what I mean.<\/p>\n
5.<\/p>\n
For a long time when you were a child you thought you didn\u2019t exist if your mother wasn\u2019t with you. What was this<\/em> called? You were invisible and no one spoke to you and the silence supported the theory, except for the bells ringing in doorways and the tap of your loose shoelace. \u201cBut did you pass through walls?\u201d I ask and you say this has nothing to do with perte de vue.<\/em> You lay under chairs while weight creaked the springs. Your mother\u2019s hand came into the frame\u2014<\/p>\n and you were real again, visible, whole.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Elizabeth J. Colen<\/a> is the author of poetry collections\u00a0Money for Sunsets<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Steel Toe Books, 2010) and\u00a0Waiting Up for the End of the World: Conspiracies<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(forthcoming from Jaded Ibis Press, October 2012, and launching at Hugo House on October 25 at 7:00 pm), as well as flash fiction<\/a> collection\u00a0Dear Mother Monster, Dear Daughter Mistake\u00a0<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(Rose Metal Press, 2011). She lives in Seattle and occasionally blogs at elizabethjcolen.blogspot.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EPISODIC TREMOR AND SLIP 1. It\u2019s an active volcano, the mountain: Shuksan. We live in an earthquake zone, calm north on the ring of fire. The house is on stilts for the waves, and rats eat tea biscuits and … Continue reading