Diane Blue Shirt Tyon

Stearns Pier


At the end of Stearns Pier
pylons creak and rafters
groan like the back seat
of a rusted out junker back home.
Gulls watch where she walks
with her face glowing
jack-o-lantern on fire
with burning teeth curling inward
and her crotch scabby as if
with splinters and kerosene.

At the end of Stearns Pier
pylons creak and rafters
groan. Gulls wait,
watching where she walks
while the sun thorns
the back of her neck,
her throat gagging for a drink,
her muscles twitchy for a hit,
every nerve firing, desperate
for the stick.

At the end of Stearns Pier
pylons creak and rafters
groan. Gulls wait and worry,
minding her steps.
She could disappear
into the bilge, and no one
would know. Her mother
won’t care, but the gulls
would miss the crusts
she always gives them.




The tramping poems of Diane Blue Shirt Tyon (Diane Solis) have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, excerpted in a book by Judy Reeves about the craft of writing in community, and published in literary journals and magazines, including, About Place Journal, America Magazine, and Ardor Literary Journal. Diane fell in love the with trains and the trails when she was seven, on her first train trip from L.A. to New Mexico. In 2005 her life partner died. Since then she’s been following in her father’s footsteps, traveling to remote places to photograph and write about the landscapes and wild creatures (including the two-leggeds) she encounters there. Diane Blue Shirt Tyon is her tramping name.

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