Stop clock

Natalie Marino

April rain, and already the fields  
are gold with flowers. Your beautiful mind  

lights the sky like a blue dream escaping 
its own darkness, but we cannot wait here  

under the sun. Heat will tarnish faces  
and force the butterflies into hiding,  

under the dry dead bark of fallen trees. Before
the clock stops, come with me and dance  

on the morning moon. We can eat naked  
sea water while love is still, before time  

folds itself inside the black permanence  
of an empty hole behind yesterday,  

when the world reveals its brokenness 
and stars erase themselves into the night. 

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Natalie Marino is a poet, physician, and mother. Her work appears in Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Capsule Stories, Green Ink Poetry, Literary Mama, Moria Online, Re-side, and elsewhere. She also reads poetry submissions for Bracken Magazine and The Southampton Review. She lives in Thousand Oaks, California with her husband and two daughters.

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