![The image depicts a farming town with a dirt road leading to white housing and barns like depicted in Cherl Dunesnil's poem Barn Dance that mentions an earthquake](https://niftylit.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Barn-Dance.jpg)
From the Archives: Barn Dance
From the archives: as we head into 2024, we are featuring some of our magazine’s earliest publications. This piece was originally published in issue number three.
Today’s caller takes the shape
of a child who emerged
from the fault line
after the earthquake
everyone knew would
come. Her cobweb
teeth, her leaded eyes—
she carries a lambskin
scroll we need to read
but we’re busy tallying
our damages, waiting
for the underwriter
while the hold music drones,
while the hold music drones.