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Middle Age

Suddenly this hunger.
The yard’s river

birch finally empties itself
of summer’s grief

when the night’s crescent
moon swallows

a small piece of the pallid
red sky.

Before the fall,
regret is a dull flame.

When grace hollows
itself,

when desire
is a complex chimera.


Natalie Marino is a poet and physician. Her work appears in Atlas and Alice, Gigantic Sequins, Hobart, Isele MagazinePleiades, Rust + MothThe Shore, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Memories of Stars, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (June 2023). She lives in California.

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