California Stars My daughters carry sage in their handswhen the dawn is a field of peacocks. My daughters tie blue-eyed grass in their hairwhen Marina del Rey is a picnic of poppies. My daughters bring Catalina Island Buffaloin their pockets when Coyote Creek is fullwith spring. My daughters hide prickly pearsin their clavicles when Laguna Lakewears the surrounding desert like a shawl. My daughters speak in the language of sunflowerswhen Box Canyon closes its coffin of secrets. My daughters sing with mountain violet breathwhen stars light up the sky behind a forest of angels. Natalie Marino is a poet and physician. Her work appears in Atlas and Alice, Gigantic Sequins, Isele…

Seed self another paradox:if you join the ground,you join the sky.lying on the groundthe hands cup under the surfacefor palmfuls of earthand the hair becomes a kind of root system you can both commune with a fellowcreature and see the whole of the heavens your heart opens like a bean-claspand the relevance ofthe human form fadesas green leaf matter unfurls the deeper you reach,the nearer the sun. All ashen It was a field rotmottled throughoutand stinging from the theftit is a field pickled in soursop metal shops the bodies walking on ithalf don’t remember the ones underuntil the haunt breath of the longwalkingmanages to whisper throughto one Draw near the…

Lemon Tree Season The front yard lemon tree is a dying clock, its hours dragging. Its sickness breaks my habits. Every day one summer in my child-home I go out back to kill the fist-thick lemon tree spider. I throw rocks at its web. Next day it’s there again. and I kill it again. A spider monkey perches on that lemon tree and eats blackberries from the vine below. Some neighbor owned that monkey. Now the monkey owns itself. A red-winged parrot screams from the top of the front yard tree, not ten feet from the top of my head. Standing beneath the monkey, I am a boy. Beneath the…

Beta   for the death of my daughter’s father   If only she could hear it now in yourreal voice again, instead of in the same old message she keeps pressing to her ear, keeps playing on her cell-phone – that sweet name you’d call her by, repeat in every call. If only she could hear it as she did when it was still a tossed-off term, a small Urdu word you’d slip into your English between your quick hello, your rushed goodbye. If only she could hear it when it meant nothing more than “child,” when it would slide so lightly from your Pakistani accent. When it was just…

Aye! And what then? I am taking applications for the Position ofColeridge in My Life. The job is part-timebut the hours are quixotic. The candidateshould be a strong meanderer and terriblygood friend, with an ear for iambics.Of course, this person should be a betterpoet than I am but wear it lightly. I willkeep the amulet that guards against envyin my left palm at all times. It is chalcedony,the chameleon of mendacious minerals.Own a walking stick, nothing too hoary.Candidate must know someone from Porlockand enjoy a good potluck. Loquacityrequired, as is a penchant for great birds.Appropriate anxiety concerning water-sports.Pay is meager but the benefits are mostlyimaginary. Office in a measureless cavern.…