Hummingbird
A theropod becomes the multi-faceted jewel
of birds, a flying emerald, iridescent opal
suspended until it drops in a molten flash,
ruby disappearing act.
Lesson in compression,
millennia of wisdom
pared down to its essence.
A flirtation with non-existence
to escape a predator.
Starlit path of DNA.
Scaly skin of avimimus grows feathers,
maniraptora forelimbs ache for wings,
beast-footed archaeopteryx claws forward
through time into its flying diminutive: bird-ballerina.
As creatures fly from extinction,
boulder-size hearts shrink to a beating teardrop.
Fishing off the Pier
My friend and I walk on the Capitola Pier,
our golden hair swirls in the sea breeze.
A fisherman profiled against the swaying water,
his pole moves in time with the sound of the waves
lapping the pilings beneath his feet.
Catch anything?
We pass two women with a fresh catch,
pearl white halibut lays with its intact side up
in the basin, one-eyed, its other side strips of dinner.
Fifty-two pounds, the women say proudly.
We bought it from a guy on a boat.
I couldn’t catch anything off the pier,
says the woman in the wheelchair.
At the end of the pier a whole family cheers
as a young girl dangles a rock cod
flopping mid air on the line.
Death dance. We are all connected here,
between the sky and the grave,
the clouds shredding into prayer flags
on the horizon, the ocean lifting up,
pulsing roughly, gray green like old glass.
Joanna Martin is a Santa Cruz poet who has published two volumes of poetry with Hummingbird Press: The Meaning of Wings and Where Stars Begin.
A theropod becomes the multi-faceted jewel
of birds, a flying emerald, iridescent opal
suspended until it drops in a molten flash,
ruby disappearing act.
Lesson in compression,
millennia of wisdom
pared down to its essence.
A flirtation with non-existence
to escape a predator.
Starlit path of DNA.
Scaly skin of avimimus grows feathers,
maniraptora forelimbs ache for wings,
beast-footed archaeopteryx claws forward
through time into its flying diminutive: bird-ballerina.
As creatures fly from extinction,
boulder-size hearts shrink to a beating teardrop.
Fishing off the Pier
My friend and I walk on the Capitola Pier,
our golden hair swirls in the sea breeze.
A fisherman profiled against the swaying water,
his pole moves in time with the sound of the waves
lapping the pilings beneath his feet.
Catch anything?
We pass two women with a fresh catch,
pearl white halibut lays with its intact side up
in the basin, one-eyed, its other side strips of dinner.
Fifty-two pounds, the women say proudly.
We bought it from a guy on a boat.
I couldn’t catch anything off the pier,
says the woman in the wheelchair.
At the end of the pier a whole family cheers
as a young girl dangles a rock cod
flopping mid air on the line.
Death dance. We are all connected here,
between the sky and the grave,
the clouds shredding into prayer flags
on the horizon, the ocean lifting up,
pulsing roughly, gray green like old glass.
Joanna Martin is a Santa Cruz poet who has published two volumes of poetry with Hummingbird Press: The Meaning of Wings and Where Stars Begin.