Neon Mariposa Magazine
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.