Pompeii

By Jennifer Hernandez

When the water finally
breaches the dam,
long after empty hollows,
long after parched ground,
even after all is well,
the deluge doesn’t stop,

becomes a train,
careens through the station,
passengers left behind
on platforms, watching,

like the citizens of Pompeii
as ash rains down
from the mountain,
peaceful exterior
having hidden
the burbling stew
inside her belly.

When she blew,
it seemed so sudden,
like the breached dam,
the runaway train.

In retrospect,
there are always signs.

Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative nonfiction. Much of her recent writing has been colored by her distress at what she reads in her daily news feed. Work can be found in such publications as New Verse News, Radical Teacher, Rise Up Review, and Writers Resist. She is working on a chapbook of hybrid writing about teaching as a political act.

Photo credit: Dr. Wendy Longo via a Creative Commons license.