tsunami vs. the fukushima 50. Lee Ann Roripaugh

testimony (as x-men’s armor)

       origin of tsunami

       ghosts of the tohoku coast

       tsunami in love: kintsukuroi / golden joinery

       origami of tsunami: a technical manual and glossary

       acknowledgments

      When man falls into conflict with nature, monsters are born.

      —The Return of Godzilla (1985)

      TSUNAMI vs. the FUKUSHIMA 50

      ontology of tsunami

      awoken venom

      cobra come uncharmed

      glittering rush

      of fanged lightning

      that strikes

      and strikes again

      tsunami has no name

      call her the scalded splash

      of tea jarred from

      a broken cup’s cracked glaze

      call her the blood-soaked shirt

      and cutaway pants

      pooled ruby on the floor / rising biohazard

      ill-omened oil that stills

      the wings of birds

      she spills

      and spills

      and spills over

      a sloshed bucket

      tipped-over pitcher

      the bent tin cup’s

      cool sluice of rinse

      poured over skin’s

      delicious prickle

      ginger’s cleansing sting

      erasing the soft flesh of fish

      from the tongue

      she goes by no name

      call her annihilatrix

      call her tabula rasa

      she’s the magic slate’s

      crackling cellophane page

      shellacked wings un-clung

      from staticky black elytra

      the liminal torn-open, turning

      words into invisible birds lifting

      unruly as catastrophe

      yes, but / and …

      (if only, if only—

      meticulous swift precision

      of disaster’s Swiss watch)

      she remains unnamed

      call her the meme

      infecting your screen

      call her the malware

      gone viral

      dreaming tsunami

      maybe she was sleeping:

      a dream of fishes helixed

      in spiraling schools

      anemone’s veronicas

      ouroboros of sea snakes

      the chambered nautilus’s

      slow-whorled tornadoes

      (hypnosis of dust motes)

      girl in the grass face down

      soiled focus, brain’s green blur

      lens wheezing in and out

      of tiny myopias: ant, gnat,

      midge, aphid, no-see-um

      Nanking cherry petals’

      sickened swirl / snapdragons’

      red mouths pinched open

      to the waking dream

      from which she can’t awaken

      (hypnosis of dust motes)

      mosquito stuck in her ear

      too scared to tell / can’t hear

      above the buzzing

      ambered seal of earwax

      fevering one side of her face

      she drowns at night

      in deep cold sweat / dreams

      she’s a sea monster

      (hypnosis of dust motes / dead calm)

      where are the fault lines

      she hides along the floorboards?

      what happens when she wakens

      from this clam before the thorn?

      tsunami goes to canada

      she liked the clouds

      which coasted down close

      spoke to her sotto voce

      in the glamorous

      language of nebulizers

      go away they seemed

      to breathe (though not unkindly)

      before sucking her deeper in

      she stared smitten

      at the mountains / stricken

      afflicted by them

      besotted in the lunch room

      with an unquenchable crush

      though maybe she worried too much

      about bears / about pepper spray

      the falls gave her strange ideas

      about froth

      and glitter

      and churn

      and spume

      and spill

      maybe someday she would pull back

      and let it all go to fall like that

      a silvery levering of pachinko balls

      a cat vomiting from a great height

      perched swirl of vertigo lurching

      on the mountainside switchback

      no taking back the swoon

      animal portents foretell the rise of tsunami

      when elephants kneel

      pressing their trunks

      down to the ground

      like