Natural Disasters Poem by Aimee Kiefer

I have been searching for a fault line,
some great divide where we could
hide all of our guilt, so that when
our friends ask what went wrong,
we can blame it on tectonic plates.

I've been looking for erosion in the soil,
some innate flaw we just could not see
so that when our home finally collapses,
we can claim it was built on rotten earth
and ignore the dirt under our fingernails.

I keep praying for earthquakes and landslides,
some natural disaster to shelter us from
all the shame we are begging not to feel.
But in truth, the only disaster around here
is the hurricane we always met to form
and we should be embarrassed of all
that we have laid to waste.