Los Dinamos Creek
In the scratchy grass, I slept until the sun / burned my forehead and thumped my eyelids. // I dreamed that sugar skulls lined up on vendors’ countertops / for Dia de los Muertos, winked at me, stuck out their red jelly tongues.
Martina Reisz Newberry’s most recent book is LEARNING BY ROTE (Deerbrook Editions). She is the author of seven poetry collections and has been widely published in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. A passionate lover of Los Angeles, Martina currently lives there with her husband Brian and their fur baby, Charlie T. Cat.
In the scratchy grass, I slept until the sun / burned my forehead and thumped my eyelids. // I dreamed that sugar skulls lined up on vendors’ countertops / for Dia de los Muertos, winked at me, stuck out their red jelly tongues.
In recent dreams, the desert bites at my life, trying to take in pieces what it tried to take all at once while I lived there. In a town of tanned bodies, tanned faces, I stayed pale as a finger bone. Unable to maintain a noble silence, I tore at my hair, ran through the bars and restaurants, my soul nipping at my heels. On the patios where the precious pay dearly for drinks, conversations were made of Os—no silences, no sounds of turning pages. I watched the sun all day, everyday, that 3 o’clock “O be joyful” waiting for me—ice cubes or champagne flutes, it was all the ...
