A Bomb

Afterwards, we'll all remember

having seen it coming.

A trick of mind, like déja-vu:

how sometimes, while being witty

over drinks, with dishes

in the sink or hand on the door

of a cabinet wherein lie

the last cashews dusted with salt

at the bottom of a jar

when you're not even hungry,

the mind summons a picture of a place

shocking in its specificity-

a certain block, a house belonging

to no one you knew in the old

neighborhood, or turning a corner

in a city you visited once

on business years ago

and haven't thought about since.

So hard to accept

irrelevance, irregularity.

Much easier to think the picture means

to tell you something, warn you,

but of what? Of where you'll die?

Maybe, since all your death will be-

all anybody's-is that shudder

like a random memory, not a burglar

at the back door but something

on the house's own quirky,

undecipherable Richter Scale,

so minor you must have imagined it.