by M.S. Rooney
I.
Two British geologists,
Graham Harris and Anthony Beardow,
claimed liquefaction
slid Sodom and Gomorrah
into the Dead Sea.
“The only way
you can really lose whole cities
and whole tracts of land
fast
is by liquefaction.”
They cite:
Helice, Greece, in 372 B.C.E.
Thousands of square miles
(unnamed), China, 1921.
Valdez, Alaska, 1950’s.
So it could be:
that the earth shook, and liquefied.
the flood plains near the Lison Peninsula,
caused bitumen deposits
to ignite like a plum pudding,
that as the cities sank,
a tsunami swept a large block
of Dead Sea salt
into the jagged new seashore,
and Lot (from his perch
on the next mountain range)
mistook it for his wife.
“You have
the distinct possibility
of a personal tragedy
having been elevated
into legend.”
II.
Lot’s wife
had a name –
what was it?
About the Author
M.S. Rooney lives in Sonoma, California with poet Dan Noreen. Her work appears in journals, including Bluestem, The Cortland Review, Main Street Rag, and Route 7 Review, and anthologies, including American Society: What Poets See (FutureCycle Press), edited by David Chorlton and Robert S. King, and Ice Cream Poems (World Enough Writers), edited by Patricia Fargnoli. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
