martina reisz newberry
DEFERENCE
Today I will look for astonishment
damned if I won’t!
I’ll show deference to all the gods;
the huge great Gods with old familiar names
and the insignificant Gods I tend to ignore:
God of termites
God of rattlesnakes
God of hives
God of the common cold
God of dog poop on my heel
God of high utility bills
God of stubbed toes and bad hair days
I’ll walk my favorite circle around this
wonderful, fallen city and will understand
why I lived to get to this day
I will invent a new language of praise today
mindful that Life is never in remission
I’ll walk my city without one prayer to those huge Gods
for a miracle anti-wrinkle cream that only costs $5
or the loss of 10 more pounds.
I’ll invent new words for “Thank you for my eyesight,”
and, if tempted to relapse,
I will look at the world through the tiny holes on a button.
Through there, I’ll see all that is necessary.
Martina Reisz Newberry’s most recent book is BLUES FOR FRENCH ROAST WITH CHICORY, due out in 2019 from Deerbrook Editions. She is the author of NEVER COMPLETELY AWAKE ( from Deerbrook Editions), and TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME (Unsolicited Press). She is also the author of WHERE IT GOES (Deerbrook Editions). LEARNING BY ROTE (Deerbrook Editions) and RUNNING LIKE A WOMAN WITH HER HAIR ON FIRE: Collected Poems (Red Hen Press). She has been included in "The Sixty Four Best Poets of 2018" (Black Mountain Press/The Halcyone Magazine editorial staff). Newberry has been included in It Happened Under Cover, Ascent Aspirations’ first two hard-copy anthologies, also in the anthologies In The Company Of Women, Blessed Are These Hands and Veils, and Halos & Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women. She has been widely published in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo Colony for the Arts, Djerassi Colony for the Arts, and Anderson Center for Disciplinary Arts. Passionate in her love for Los Angeles, Martina currently lives there with her husband, Brian, a Media Creative.
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