Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome writer and poet Sandra Salinas Newton, currently based in Austin, Texas, with “Oysters,” a poem that explores memory and our connection to time and space. Eating oysters with friends, a couple, she remembers how her parents married when she was four or five, more from religious guilt than love, and her past relationship. “Love,/ or perhaps the lack thereof,” is the itchy pearl that draws Sandra and the reader into contemplation. “I recognized how far I was from the ocean,/ Its creatures that fed our appetites,/ Its tide that smoothed our messy lives, And its depths into which we could drop ourselves/ Like sleeping.” How do we reconcile the details of our small lives with the grand waves of time and find peace? Sandra gives us a wistful poem written largely with iambic accents that lull us into reverie, dotted by musical sibilants and fricatives. The result is achingly beautiful.
Read “Oysters” in Synkroniciti’s “Belonging” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Sandra Salinas Newton is a novelist, poet, and enthusiastic herder of four cats (although they believe her to be their devoted servant) in Austin, Texas where, when it’s hot, it’s beastly hot, and when it’s cold—who am I kidding? It’s never cold in Austin, Texas. Chilly, yes; cold, no. She thinks Austin is great but still yearns for New York City.