JUST GO AWAY
by Juanita Rey
Sorry.
I refuse to be hit on
in a laundromat.
I sit on this bench,
expressionless,
senses shut down,
as if I’m in a coma.
So don’t speak to me.
I am not a person.
I am not here.
And you’ve mistaken
the intent of that green dress.
the message in
that strapless black bra.
You misread the situation.
My clothes did not
put you up to this.
MY NEIGHBORS
Sounds pass between
these adjoining apartments
but bodies do not.
My neighbors dine
at their small kitchen table.
I pick on leftovers at mine.
I hear their shower
but I don’t rinse under it.
We each have our own water,
our own bodies to scour.
I say hello when I see them
in the corridor.
And they return my greeting.
But we each go in our own doors.
There’s no comingling.
My neighbors are a middle-aged couple.
I am a young single woman.
If years and situations
were a wall,
they’d be the ones I hang my paintings on.
THE GOOD NEWS WON’T LAST
I am learning,
for the first time in so long,
that all my tests are normal.
The doctor advises:
more calcium in my diet,
exercise regularly.
She still prescribes something.
It’s in her nature.
She knows
wellness is the first step
toward sickness.
In the meantime,
have a cure.
BIO
