Notice while we talk
what my hands are doing
to each other: 
fluttering, flying,
straining at the fingers of each. 

Like imprisoned birds,
they bump against
each other, try—
for brief, very brief seconds—
to be quiet and cool. 

It never works. 
They are in an agony
of confusion,
fighting and screaming
in their own way. 

Martina Reisz Newberry’s most recent book is WHERE IT GOES (Deerbrook Editions), She is also the author of LEARNING BY ROTE (Deerbrook Editions), WHAT WE CAN’T FORGIVE. LATE NIGHT RADIO, PERHAPS YOU COULD BREATHE FOR ME. HUNGER, AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE: POEMS 1996-2006, NOT UNTRUE & NOT UNKIND (Arabesques Press, Amari Hamadene, editor) and RUNNING LIKE A WOMAN WITH HER HAIR ON FIRE: Collected Poems (Red Hen Press). 

She is the also the author of LIMA BEANS AND CITY CHICKEN: MEMORIES OF THE OPEN HEARTH—a memoir of her father—published by E.P. Dutton and Co. in 1989. 

Newberry has been included in Ascent Aspirations first hard-copy Anthology, also in the anthology In The Company Of Women and has been widely published in literary magazines In the US and abroad. 
Martina lives in Hollywood, California with her husband Brian and their best 4-legged pal, Charlie the Cat.