With what you hold

©Cameron Altaras

Detonate hydrogen bombs

With what you hold

inside

Shift the plates of the San Andreas fault

Finally setting California free

With what you hold

            inside

Agitate the entire row of

Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount St Helens, Mount Adams

Even cause Mount Shasta to blow its top

Unleashing millennia of silt

Upending evolution’s path

With what you hold

            inside

Yet you wear flowers in your hair

Delicate blooms swaying

Gently dancing in the breeze of a

Sweet mountain meadow where Heidi skips and Maria sings

Glints of sunlight obscuring the swirling subterranean

Like the smile you form

With

(that perfectly chosen and lined hue of pink)

your lips.