three poems
by Natalie Marino
Weldon Kees Looks Back
Virginia Woolf came to an end when she walked into water with rocks in her pockets. I never wondered why because there are no answers, just inspiration. I was a poet and painter but I wasn’t very good to my wife—just before I filed for divorce, I put her in an institution when she became mesmerized by McCarthy’s interrogations. I loved hearing my voice alone after midnight talking through the radio until I ran out of things to say. The morning I disappeared was colored red. The waitress who poured my last cup of coffee had bright lips and a pinned carnation on her dress that still held its sweet odor. After I paid my bill I drove my car west looking for gold and found myself at San Francisco’s famous bridge, almost as high as the sky.
Every Woman Tells a Story
Mary was the daughter of Italian immigrants. The first in her family to speak fluent English, she paid for a train to take her to nursing school downtown so she could be somebody. Learning to tell the difference between the sick and well, she didn’t like seeing the aging nuns waiting in wheelchairs for Jesus. Mary ran in the rain with a man she would later marry as a pregnant bride. She raised five children, but was mostly remembered in December for her jars of preserved fruit. Built like a basement, Mary was cherried by too many winters, appled until her hair was completely gray. Shame became a war she only waged with herself, and could only be soothed with a sip of scotch or gin after dinner. While sitting alone she wondered whether she would be punished after death. In the end, her mouth was open in an expression of silence. In the end, she was valleyed like a setting sun making the horizon sparkle with a last dash of cinnamon.
Lucky Break
The last of five, Uncle Jimmy was born to run. The day he left home to win his first championship he was white as a cue ball. Twenty-three and already quite possibly the best player on the planet, he and his girl Pearl knew what it meant to hustle. Put on your best joker face and have a fast car waiting outside to take you anywhere but here. When the other guy is behind the eight ball, know how to walk the dog while forcing errors. Uncle Jimmy knew a kill shot just as well as any railbird. Always game for a cigarette and a beer, he was willing to try anything once. After years of clocking the money ball he opened his own hall just outside Pittsburgh where he was known to show the kids how to play for free on rainy Saturday nights. In the end when no one remembered his name except his brothers, he was bald as a billiard ball, quiet as a hospital bed. The doctors miscued when they told him he had to agree to the feeding tube. Uncle Jimmy finally caught a lucky break when the sky turned black and he was eight and out.
Photo of Natalie Marino
BIO: Natalie Marino is a poet and practicing physician. Her work appears in Heavy Feather Review, Little Patuxent Review, Pleiades, Salt Hill, wildness and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook Under Memories of Stars (Finishing Line Press, 2023). She lives in California. You can find her online at nataliemarino.com or on Instagram @natalie_marino.