Sierra Negra
Richard Boada

The sun’s pink spears
the volcano’s skinny
trees. Punishing magma carves

rock, melts palmettos, boils ocean. 
Tongues of lava, like pistons,
lap up slope and apron. The caldera

appears wide-mouthed and smoking. 
Galapagos hawks fly through ash plumes
toward coastal banks where they will perch

on cacti.  The morning’s fluorescents
court grass fires: archipelago sinking.


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