CRACKING EARTH’S MANTLE / image by Amalie Flynn

My brilliance is slow-growing as magma.
And that’s my fault, like the San Andreas:
consequential, but maybe not this year.

My brilliance has dimmed
in the silver drawer,
polished for company
who never comes.

Meanwhile, I’m cracking
Earth’s mantle way below,
and above, work shoes walk
dirt roads, or city sidewalks,
finding fault. Whose fault is it
when everything firm is now shaken?

Someday I’ll blow,
and carve a fiery blackening river
out of a tropical forest
to your door.

My urgency has waited
a thousand years.
Now I’m here.

Rachel Crumble

Rachel Landrum Crumble recently retired from teaching high school, having previously taught kindergarten through college. She has an MFA from Vermont College. She has published in The Porterhouse Review, Typishly, SheilaNaGig, Common Ground Review, Spoon River Review, The Banyan Review, among others, and in Poetry Breakfast and Humans of the World. Her first poetry collection, Sister Sorrow, was published by Finishing Line Press in January 2022. She lives with her husband of 43 years, a jazz drummer, and near 2 of their 3 adult children, and two adorable grand twins. poetteachermom.com is her website.