Santa Ana

A blue day, the sky is clear, beach littered
with shattered palm fronds, otherwise it’s
empty, emptier even than on Christmas
or Thanksgiving Day

In the curb, more wind-tossed carcasses
pile up, the loss unmeasured
inconceivable, now that the sun is back—
three days that feel like years

In the haze beyond the pier, the route
to freedom—barred. Where young women
rode on horseback to the grocery-store
waves lick up a smoldering shore
chimneys are survivors, tombstones—

Behind the ridge, visible only on the map
hissing devils creep through canyons, deep
beneath brush and chaparral, uncontained
ecstatic in the breeze

When the sun sets the hills blaze up
now you can see it, from the freeway
from the bedroom window
north, east, west
a grapefruit glow throughout the night
a ring of godless pillars, hypnotizing

The bird shrieks, alarmed
palm trees bow
Santa Ana has come to town

Julia Knobloch is a rising fifth-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR Los Angeles. She also serves as poetry editor for Ben Yehuda Press.