Below the escarpment
in ocean foam, dolphins make
holes like the rings of Saturn.
In Santa Barbara, in our cliff nest,
we guzzle fruit like fluorescent
orioles after oranges.
Soon the next fire, the next
quake or river of mud,
soon the sizzle of the end.
We take hits of weed
surrounded by gilded mountaintops,
in time to the Mission bells.
Watching hang-gliders
slide by above the cliff face,
we gasp as the vetch turns yellow.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 5.
Cammy Thomas’s newest collection of poems, Tremors, came out in 2021. Her first book, Cathedral of Wish, received the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete her second, Inscriptions. All are published by Four Way Books. Last spring, Far Past War, an orchestral setting of her poems composed by her sister, Augusta Read Thomas, premiered at Washington DC’s National Cathedral. She lives in Bolton, MA.
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