MY VIEW FROM HERE by Juanita Rey

There are days

when life is suspect.

It’s a kind of abnormality,

a deformity of blood and bone.

We’re in this body,

supposedly for safekeeping.

But it’s so fragile,

it could crack at any moment.

And it invariably shows up

where it can be easily got at,

like the roadway,

the city later at night,

with other people

or merely sitting here alone.

When did I last laugh?

My past is marooned

on a faraway green island.

My present works cheap.

My future can’t get beyond

next Friday when the rent is due.

When I’ve forgotten how to feel,

I retreat into my photographs.

Hope does take a good snapshot.

Too bad it’s in the hands of the hopeless.

But look at me. I’m smiling.

I’m with my mother.

I’m happy

because somebody asked me to be.

It’s not a natural state.

Not like now

when no one’s asking.

Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five years. Her work has been published in  Pennsylvania English, Opiate Journal, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.