AS IT NEVER WAS

The orange moon watching the fields

augurs a good harvest. Small children

unfurl ribbons and clap away crows.

The sky is painted lapis lazuli.

Evening: white-throated swifts cut the air

with their tails. We watch them mate, fall,

uncouple right before they would crash to earth.

We drink apple beer and sleep. In the distance

bells toll. Summers, we journey to the mainland.

Once on our return, pink and silver dolphins

leapt among the long oars as we rowed.

Diane K. Martin's work has appeared in New England Review, Field, Poetry Daily, Crazyhorse, Zyzzyva, and Third Coast, among others. She was awarded second place in the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize competition, judged by B.H. Fairchild, in 2004, and she was included in Best New Poets 2005.  She lives in San Francisco and works as a technical writer and editor. Her book, Conjugated Visits, is published by Dream Horse Press (2010).