Birthday

Walking the dogs on the trail
after the storm, we pause
for a crew trimming a large oak.
Look out! I don’t want that limb
to get me our friend says—

—unless it’s quick. It’s her 90th
birthday and she’s perfectly
aware of her trajectory. The
crew member signals to us:
It’s safe. For now. So far.

Seated in the booth for the
birthday lunch, we comment she’s
as old as Willie Nelson, ask her
whether she’s gleaned any
wisdom from her harvest of years.

She looks down: If you wait
twenty years for a married man,
you’ll end up with exactly nothing.
We order drinks, a big dessert,
her life spilling out on the table.

*

Epistle after the Fires

I’m o.k. now. / I’m back at the primal source of poems: wind, sea / and rain, the market and the salmon. …
      — Richard Hugo

Hugo’s letter to Kizer apologizes for his behavior.
Maybe my poem can outweigh Netflix, cat antics, politics.

I am slowly working my way through a bag of Snickers
bought for trick-or-treaters. No one really tricks, though

last year a seven-year-old said he couldn’t fuckin’ believe
we ran out. The Day of the Dead party was postponed

for evacuation. Death takes a rain check! Still, I’m pissed at
those who wouldn’t leave. A nasty way to die, I think.

We are looking forward to getting together at Thanksgiving.
But the delicata squash is not some special dish. Its only

claim to fame is surviving the ash. We’ll also bring some wine
and pickled green tomatoes—not to be consumed together.

*

Hurricane Mindy

Breaking News was your old girl’s storm,
a category 4, I think. These kinds of squalls
are never really over

force and velocity, jealousy and envy
—snapshot in my folks’ living room—
I can still see

your arms your striped sweater
her contours, her smile with dimples,
maybe I snapped the picture

*

Poems by Diane Martin have appeared in ONE ART, American Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, diode, Field, Harvard Review, Narrative, Plume, and many other journals. One poem received a Pushcart Special Mention, another won a prize from Smartish Pace, and another took second place in Nimrod’s Neruda prize. Her first collection, Conjugated Visits, a National Poetry Series finalist, was published by Dream Horse Press and her second collection, Hue & Cry, was published by MadHat Press. She lives in western Sonoma County, California.