by Kelly R. Samuels

Peter Menzel’s Photo of the San Andreas Fault, CaRRizo Plain

I think first of the pinched edging of pies.
Furrowed and browned, the bit the knife struggles with.
Seam of fruit breaking through, darkened.

All this rucking border to. Crimped
and wrinkled, what crumbles and breaks. 

And now, here, the smooth topography.
What resembles velvet’s nap, in this light.

I saw hills like this once before.
Where the ocean stood in for the plain.
And no walk could be taken out upon.

Where I imagined what lay beneath. Stirred,
shifting.

                        Moving as it did in its obvious way.

It seems lush, this. Not of the desert. And so.

I do not see a scar or even a spine
or even the drying bones of some creature left in the sun.
No fracture or collapse, just now, here.

            But, rather, the berry oozing.

Crust melting
in mouth.

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Kelly R. Samuels is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of two chapbooks: Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited Press) and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have recently appeared in Salt Hill, RHINO, Permafrost, Arcturus, and Cold Mountain Review.