Blue and Yellow Polka Dots & But It’s Still Summer 2025

Poetry, Martina Reisz Newberry

Blue and Yellow Polka Dots

Say you’re invited to a birthday party for a second cousin-in-law (whom you have never met) but your other cousin is going and wants you to go with 

and say the party was to be held in someone’s backyard and was to be catered by a seafood restaurant and you love shrimp so you agree to go and you buy a pricey copy of “The Great Gatsby” and have it wrapped right there at the bookstore so this second cousin-in-law (whom you have never met) will know you’re no cheapskate. 

And say you buy something new to wear to this party because your other cousin said it would be “a dressy affair” and a new dress is really too expensive given the pricey book you bought so you pay for a new outfit with a nearly maxed-out credit card and have a mini-anxiety attack at the checkout wondering if your credit card will take one last purchase. 

And say that the day of the event arrives and your other cousin calls to say she’s got the flu and you realize you’ll be going alone to a party you never wanted to attend in the first place and you’ll feel weird because everyone will stare at you because who are you for God’s sake?! 

And say you go anyway and you stand all by yourself under a tree that smells strange (like honey and garbage mixed) and they bring out the seafood trays and there is not one shrimp anywhere on any tray. Not one.

Tell me, shy, sweet, and shining woman, do you return the dress?

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But It’s Still Summer 2025

Our friend brought his dog to have coffee with us.

Everything was so fucked up–even the weather

had been wild and unreliable. Our smiles 

were forced even the dog’s. 

There would be no laughing while we 

tore into our croissants. Our friend

fights various demons but is bothered most

by the fascist smoke from 

the president’s führer-driven fires. 

The coffee is good at Sabor de Cahuenga.

The outside tables are under a plastic roof;

the patio is surrounded by greenery.

Our friend’s dog doesn’t eat 

tidbits from our pastries. She has

beautiful eyes, was prone on the

cool brick floor, blinking long lashes.

We talked about how fucked up

everything is, how Hope is a blurred

heat wave curling over an ugly desert

(a poet’s phrase to describe a terrified city).

Our friend liked our tee shirts:

mine said “God Bless Pope Leo IV,”

my husband’s said “Chinga La Migra.”

Tee shirts are among the few things we can do

to show our resistance. All of us 

including the dog sniffed the air–(strange air 

to breathe in Hollywood),the smoke was heavy 

and the führer stench lay all around us .

Somewhere, a classroom sang in Spanish

Oh fatherland, with an olive branch of peace,

For your eternal destiny has been written

In heaven by the finger of God.*

We didn’t actually hear them

but our friend’s dog clearly did.

Her ears stood up, her head tilted.

She wasn’t smiling.

We finished coffees and morning carbs,

hugged as if it was our last hug 

on our last day. We went home;

our friend took his dog for a walk.

Well, our friend said, no matter what,

maybe we’ll live to see things get better.

I shook my head “No.”

They might, he said, it’s still summer after all.

*The Mexican National Anthem, written in 1853 by Francisco González Bocanegra.

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Martina Reisz Newberry is the author of 7 books of poetry. Her most recent book is “Sadie: Queen of the Swollen Nose Saloon” (Alien Buddha Press, April 2025). She is also the author of “Beyond Temples,” (Deerbrook Editions, May 2024), “Glyphs,” (Deerbrook Editions, May 2022)  “ Blues for French Roast with Chicory, (Deerbrook Editions, February 2020), the author of  Never Completely Awake ( from Deerbrook Editions ), Where It Goes (Deerbrook Editions, August 2014), “Learning by Rote.” (Deerbrook Editions, May 2012), “Running Like a Woman with Her Hair on Fire.” (Red Hen Press, September 2005), and “Take the Long Way Home,” (Unsolicited Press, August 2017). Newberry has been included in The Cenacle, Cog, Blue Nib, Braided Way, Roanoak Review, THAT Literary Review, Mortar Magazine, and many other literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. Her work is included in the anthologies Marin Poetry Center Anthology, Moontide Press Horror Anthology,  A Decade of Sundays: L.A.'s Second Sunday Poetry Series-The First Ten Years and many others. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo Colony for the Arts, Djerassi Colony for the Arts, and Anderson Center for Disciplinary Arts.