Quake -- poetry by Aminah Aliu

for George Floyd

7.5 billion people on Earth

Unable to stop a 46-year-old earthquake

From happening

I guess death is nothing but a natural disaster

The inevitable shifting of tectonic plates

The inevitable creation of fault lines

I’m quaking in the aftershock

7.5 billion people on Earth

Unable to stop a 46-year-old earthquake

From happening

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Aminah Aliu is a high-school senior, poet, and writer from California. She has co-founded her school's first coding-based community service site and founded her school’s poetry club—one of few creative writing outlets on her campus. She has won a Gold Medal, Silver Medal, and multiple Gold keys from Scholastic Art & Writing awards for her work in poetry, and was recently published in the Black Girl, White School anthology. When she is not in school, she can be found reading, crocheting, or playing the ukulele, and she hopes to explore songwriting and fiction writing in the future.