A BELONGING

by Juanita Rey

It’s windy outside
just the way the rattling trash cans like it.
Curtains shake.
Window rattles.
A pen rolls off the table,
onto the floor.
The noise startles me.
But it’s not about fear.
Just the dubious nature of my life here.

Mice scamper through the walls.
Spiders crisscross the ceiling.
Shadows steal half the floor,
then my leg up to the knee.
A friend I have not seen in years
appears to me in this kitchen
of all places.
It’s amazing how creative
light and dust can get
when they have my memories
as a model.
But, of course, it will be totally dark soon.
She cannot stay.

I’m reading a book in English.
I feel proud of that for some reason.
But it makes me a little less Dominican
and no more American than I was before.

Then my neighbor from the apartment below
knocks on my door.
She says she thought
she heard somebody home.
That’s not altogether encouraging
but it’s a start.

THE TAINO MOON

The sun sinks into the sea
but the moon is another kind of rising,
like the lilt of a song but without the sound,
a drum-less palo, a choir of departing gulls.
It has the air, the breezy cadence of a fateful moment
but, as I head towards home, it turns perfect.

The lights ahead are a human constellation,
the public eyes of the ones who make do,
most inside now, concluding this day
in the manner of all days, the light
nudged westward, the dark overseer,
and the old moon of the Taino,
held over for these times.

POEM TO THE WORD “NO”

Why is someone’s tongue
forcing its way into my mouth?

My legs are curled up
so I push back with my hands.

How many ways can I say “No.”
If the word’s not heard,
it must get physical.
Thankfully, “No” has muscle.

I want to believe
that life is about the choices I make –
good or bad –
and not what other people want of me.

Thankfully, he leaves –
first, out of my mouth
then through the door.

BIO

Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet, US resident. Her work has been published in Mixed Mag, The Mantle, The Lincoln Review, Lion and Lilac, amongst others.