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Mark Saba has been writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for 40 years. His book publications include, most recently, Two Novellas: A Luke of All Ages / Fire and Ice, Calling the Names (poetry), and Ghost Tracks: Stories of Pittsburgh Past. His work has appeared widely in literary magazines around the U.S. and abroad. He is also a painter, and is recently retired as a medical illustrator at Yale University. Please see marksabawriter.com.

Pause

Mark Saba

Aqua, indigo, blues
that come and go. Water
holding them in an arc

that reaches our sandy feet.
The sky colors too, clears
for composed clouds.

How many lives have we lived?
In one I run through mud
at the edge of a Pennsylvania creek,

the trees heavy, hazy, and still.
In another I peer through a window
to a hurricane gone berserk.

Now we are reborn in a faux
paradise, making us question
whether we’ve ever lived

as prisoners of an age,
our scars now tinted rose
lying under Caribbean sun

where they welcome us with eyes
that tell their own stories
in colors we will never know.

— Mark Saba

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