Natalie Marino

is still a beautiful little fool1.

It’s at least as hard

as it always was.

Parades still go down

the streets—

one side red, the other blue.

In the distance

smoke rises at the edge

of the horizon’s black line

and I can imagine

a crowd far away

spending the night outside.

A long time ago

fields were empty and wordless,

every mountain a tall prayer.

Now I can’t talk to God,

there are too many people.

I am a mirror, a wilting flower

looking up at the sky.

I am a dark witness.

All I see are death and stars2.

1 In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby Daisy says of her infant daughter: “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

2 The last line of Walt Whitman’s poem “A Clear Midnight” is “Night, sleep, death and the stars.”