Quake

Time is an illusion.

Albert Einstein

She was chopping vegetables

she says when the earthquake

hit, listening to the podcast

I sent her on anxiety. We laugh.

At the irony, she says she

wasn’t afraid at the time, I ask

how long it was and she says

long and I look it up while

she is talking and the internet

says the quake was a total of

five seconds. I don’t tell

her this fact, just listen to her talk

about the shaking house I grew

up in and the waves in the

pool and the rattling stove and

the purple knife in her hand. I

I can imagine it all, she says

it wasn’t the present but the future

that got me, I feared how long

it would last, she laughs, all

while listening to a podcast

on anxiety. I don’t say, synchronicity

certain that would be insensitive,

just like she doesn’t ask about

the war, we shift and talk

about our upcoming trip to New York

for my daughter’s graduation

and how this Mother’s Day three

generations can celebrate together

and how this has never ever happened

and later that morning when the dance

teacher invites us to let things go I shake

like the quake my mama chopped through.