{"id":956,"date":"2026-04-03T18:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=956"},"modified":"2026-04-06T00:15:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T00:15:41","slug":"joker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=956","title":{"rendered":"Joker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">She glides past, throwing me side eye.<br>Can\u2019t win em all, I think.<br>She returns, this time bearing a smirk.<br>Oh, she\u2019s feeling better! I sigh in relief.<br><br>Without warning: <br><strong><em>S p l a s h !<\/em><\/strong><br>She inundates me<br>with a swift flick of her tail.<br><br>I glance down and take in:<br>my water soaked jeans,<br>my dripping Veja leather sneakers.<br>I feel my no-show socks squelching.<br><br>She swims away.<br>And I swear, I<br> hear her cackling <br>in Atlantic bottlenose dolphinese.<br><br>She\u2019s laughing at, not with me.<br>I guess that one\u2019s on me.<br>I\u2019m in \u2018the Splash Zone\u2019 after all.<br>Lesson learned.<br><br>Just because the National Aquarium <br>indefinitely cancelled scripted shows<br>doesn\u2019t mean that the resident dolphins<br>agreed to cancel showing off.<br><br>Mammal v mammal:<br>As standoffs go, <br>I guess I\u2019ll take a splash off <br>over the alternatives on display <br>around the world this month.<br><br>I walk away, a little thrown.<br>Slightly chagrined.<br>Squeaking in my kicks,<br>I concede this round to the sea.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cJoker,\u201d a face-off with a snarky teen, written April 03, poem 093 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: &#8220;The Joker, an Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin,&#8221; by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,262,200,2],"tags":[441,467,468,469,471,470,472,473,361,442],"class_list":["post-956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-dry-humor","category-humor","category-poems","tag-april","tag-aquarium","tag-baltimore","tag-dolphin","tag-mammal","tag-sealife","tag-side-eye-2","tag-splash-zone","tag-spring","tag-spring-break"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":966,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions\/966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}