Poetry / Jennifer Richter
:: Trending: Seismologist Explains How to Make an Earthquake Early Warning System With Cats ::
Lately I have more cats in my Cloud than kids in real life two kids no cats but now no kids at home so cats are how we stay in touch if their phones ring they huff mom why’re you calling but when I text my son a tabby in a taco bowtie he texts right back maybe a chonky ginger and I know he’s okay that’s a thumbs up for today since the kids left I’ve been using cats to predict disaster as the seismologist says it’s tricky you’d think cats parkouring through kitchens crashing trashing everything would mean it’s all falling apart you’d think a cat reeling with cheese stuck to its face might be a cry for help but when he sends those I know my son’s actually laughing that day my daughter had a fever and a French final I texted you’re the best with a moustached munchkin she sent back a show-posed golden Persian someone had captioned yo for real this cat looks like the grandfather of a croissant how is it only 16th best ha I thought okay she’s okay when they don’t respond I’m suddenly back in a too quiet house with toddlers I worry if one sends the same meme two days in a row what’s so distracting I worry getting bursts of Norwegian forest cats in the snow from my son it’s tricky you’d think all those dreamy scenes might mean he’d found a little peace this week but the last winter he lived at home it vanished the neighbor’s cat with ears like that slept only on our deck only ever let my son get close then one day left no warning just didn’t come back that winter my friend left too you never know seismologists agree meanwhile we chase hints of what and when like red laser dots we won’t ever pin down a guy online actually analyzed a thousand cookie fortunes found very few use predictive language mostly they offer random observations about you like my daughter when I visit her wow mom at my outfit means either the heart-eyed cat emoji or the crying one now my son texts kittens spilled from a takeout box rice like snow on their noses my friend’s hands on my body used to shake with jolts that rose he said from deep beneath his feet okay you’ll be okay he said anyone can heal anyone then pointed to a shadowed corner sighing oh look at all their wings so I squinted like I do at my phone now at one of the sticky snarling kittens chewing a fortune you are surrounded by angels it says wow mom they’d say if my kids saw me always staring at my dark screen like that corner look I’d say I’m okay every day you light it up
:: Message in a Bottle: Dear Future ::
Stunned to still be here after emergency brain surgery my friend kept weeping kept palming her chest to feel the rise of her actual breath oh future maybe by now your earth is fissured as a cortex maybe your west coast has become a sedated brain wiped clean by waves oh dear future if like my friend you wake in a shaken state may you recover like her surrounded by beloveds repeating the word fine and experts nodding at the word stable may it be still too soon to say what’s been irretrievably lost may your memories resurface like hers just the sunny ones floating back so far dear future how are you I seriously think about you all the time
From the writer
:: Account ::
In the windowless depths of the Caltech Archives, I read this question in handwritten fan mail to Charles F. Richter, inventor of the earthquake magnitude scale, and knew I’d found the spark of my next collection: “I was wondering how you feel about your name being associated with a disaster.”
I grew up in the flood-prone, tornado-swept, wind-chilled Midwest; it wasn’t until I moved to the Pacific Northwest twenty years ago that I began hearing the term “Richter scale” threaded through public broadcasts and private conversations with increasing frequency and urgency. These two poems come from that new manuscript, The Really Big One, which has become a consideration of the ways we—as individuals, as families, as communities—cycle through periods of shattering and healing. In both of these poems, the language and imagery of seismology helped me approach the entwined subjects of family, fear, and the future; at the heart of each poem is the beautiful and brave leap of faith we take each day, trusting that everything will be okay.
Jennifer Richter’s first collection, Threshold (2010), was chosen by Natasha Trethewey as a winner in the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry; her second collection, No Acute Distress (2016), was a Crab Orchard Series Editor’s Selection, and both books were named Oregon Book Award Finalists. Her new work has been featured in ZYZZYVA, The Los Angeles Review, The Missouri Review, and The Massachusetts Review. Richter teaches in Oregon State University’s MFA program. https://jenniferrichterpoet.com