The Other Side of Panic by Martina Reisz Newberry

The Other Side of Panic

by Martina Reisz Newberry

It begins
with the desert’s hot sky,
mendacious
as always,
alchemizing grief and loathing
into love stories.
Here is the other side of panic:
a dug-in-deep
lethargy
that makes your
marrow itch.
Anyway,
the desert underwrites
your soul’s story.
You become
untethered from yourself
which may
or
may not
be a good thing.
Such intricacy!
People in the sand
looking for closure
as if there was such an animal.
“We’ll do this
so we can have
closure,”
they say when
what they mean is
they want every gory detail.
They want to smell and taste
the who/what/where/when/why
in each sanctification
of violence.
I dream a lot
in this desert.
My dreams
turn to fish line
which I use
to sew what is real
to what is not.