Persophone In The Golden State Poem by Meghan O'Rourke

The difference between fear and terror is hard to understand.

The winter was coming. I knew this, and hoped it might not affect me.

In many ways, it didn't. Snow came down

in the California mountains. I went to my exercise classes,

avoided the cameras at stop-lights.

In the park my dog slipped her collar and hid among the banana palms.

She was afraid of something I couldn't see.

The difference between fear and terror: something to do with the irrational.

In those months of winter sun, a sun much stronger than I was used to,

I was alone, more peaceful than I had ever been.

I walked among the hills, letting the sun

settle on my skin like detergent. The houses were still underwater.

The ex-police officer, who had gone mad after being fired, slipped the dragnet.

All week the helicopters roam above us, machine skies, sniper sights.

Around me people stay inside, never hang the laundry on the line,

will not send their children out to play in the yards.

On the street, a man with a gun is approaching a woman's home -

I hear it on the radio as it is happening.