Sentence Fragment as Argument

After hymns bring
no more rain.

After monotone
sermons stop.

After the search ends
at an empty altar.

After we see God
as a naked continent.

After all sunsets turn orange
with smog.

After crisis is reduced
to a sentence fragment.

After we flaunt panic
like wealth.

After we mourn magnolias
and roses.

After we release the remnants
of our fertility.

After we stand on empty
prairies and plains.

Shored Fragments*

A lesson in seduction,
the earth is clean as a woman.

The earth sings a blue key
to the sea at night

and murmurs to lost stars
at dawn.

An ecstasy of movement,
the earth holds onto gold

for an instant but sees sorrow
in the color yellow.

The earth speaks a language
of clarity

remembering our innocence,
mourning our reticence.

The earth is a reflection
of the angry sun

as it prays
to a blackening horizon.

The earth sharpens
and banishes.

The earth threatens the end
at its edge.

*the title of this poem is an allusion to the line “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” in T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land”

Natalie Marino is a poet and physician. Her work appears in Gigantic Sequins, Pleiades, Rust and Moth, The Shore and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Memories of Stars, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (June 2023). She lives in California.

Published October 22 2022