On Impossibility

by Natalie Marino

The closest I came to a time machine was at a library in downtown Pittsburgh, where the inside of every book smelled like rain. The time machine was a small dark blue box with a row of red roses, and was partially hidden in the back. The librarian told me I could watch the past for as long as I wanted, that I could borrow but couldn’t buy. There was a hole just big enough for my eye on the side of the box. When I looked inside I instantly knew it was just after the last good war had ended. I watched a group of young women getting ready for the evening. One of the women was leaning close to a mirror putting on bright lipstick and pinning up her hair like Betty Grable. She told the other women of her boyfriend with whom she would soon be reunited. He had already applied for a homestead loan for a farm out west, where the skies were always cloudless and the air always sweet, where she would have her own English garden complete with rolling lawns, fruit groves and representations of classical temples. She told the other women how excited she still was for the future. She told the other women that just before sunset she would run to the train station in her tightest silk dress and wait for her blue angel to come home, when she would be his yellow, his little light. Later that night she would go with him to a big band dance under the new moon. She would lay her head on his strong shoulder and dream of a spring wedding.

Natalie Marino is a poet, writer and practicing physician. Her work appears in Gooseberry Pie Lit, Hayden's Ferry Review, JMWW, Little Patuxent Review, Pleiades, Salt Hill, wildness and elsewhere. She lives in California. You can find her online at nataliemarino.com or on Instagram @natalie_marino.