Poem for Wednesday and Barely Balanced

The Earthquake She Slept Through
By Mary Jo Bang

She slept through the earthquake in Spain.
The day after was full of dead things. Well, not full but a few.
Coming in the front door, she felt the crunch of a carapace

under her foot. In the bathroom, a large cockroach
rested on its back at the edge of the marble surround; the dead
antennae announced the future by pointing to the silver eye

that would later gulp the water she washed her face with.
Who wouldn't have wished for the quick return
of last night's sleep? The idea, she knew, was to remain awake

and while walking through the day's gray fog, trick the vaporous
into acting like something concrete: a wisp of cigarette smoke,
for instance, could become a one-inch Lego building

seen in the window of a bus blocking the street.
People sometimes think of themselves as a picture that matches
an invented longing: a toy forest, a defaced cricket, the more

or less precious lotus. The night before the quake, she took a train
to see a comic opera with an unlikely plot. She noticed a man
in a tan coat and necktie who looked a lot like Kafka.

The day after, she called a friend to complain about the bugs.
From a distant city—his voice low and slightly plaintive—he said,
Aren't you well? Is there anything you want?

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I got quite a bit of work done on the first day of the government shutdown, largely because I don't work for the government and didn't leave the house till nearly dinnertime. Many of my friends did not have good days despite lovely weather in the DC area -- they were dealing with being furloughed and worrying about money and in one case canceling a trip from California to DC to visit a child who works for a currently-closed government agency (they've never been to DC so they were looking forward to visiting the zoo, Smithsonian, Archives, etc.).

We had dinner with Angela and Kevin at Lebanese Taverna, which was delightful both in terms of the food and the company -- we chatted a lot about action movies, Sondheim, and craziness in childrearing, and stayed away from depressing things like politics and the fact that she is currently out of work due to the government shutdown. Then we came home and watched Agents of SHIELD, which again was fine but isn't grabbing me the way Sleepy Hollow is, and the baseball playoffs. From the Renfaire, Barely Balanced: