2 poems, Juanita Rey

PRESENCE

I never thought she’d be present

at the birth of her first great-grandchild.

She’s buried in Santo Domingo these many years.

But her ghost doesn’t just haunt the old neighborhood,

it can travel as well.

I’ve been carrying the eggs of her daughter’s eggs.

The shells have cracked.

A brown-skinned boy with a squawk like an eagle

and dark curly hair, 

is curled up in both our arms.

That was her phantom in the delivery room.

Quite spry for someone the age she would have been.

She peered over the shoulder of the doctor.

She helped the nurse to steady the newborn,

gently nudge the fear out of him.

Those are her hand-prints in the blood,

on my brow. 

So the line never stops.

Maybe her mother is around as well.

And the mother before that.

Pregnancy is not a singular event

but the latest in a long line.

Everyone embraces this new human flesh.

They tap the back.

They get the lungs working.

They kiss the cheeks so gently

it’s like a warm breeze from the islands.

IT’S ALL IN HERE

He doesn’t get my poetry.

To him it’s just words and more words,

sprinkled randomly on the page.

And yet he can’t help reading

this stuff I write.

As abstract, as arbitrary as it may be,

I am the author.

He tried conversation.

But found it unrevealing.

So he figured there’s

no other way into me

than through my creations.

What can I say?

Nothing.

Lines on a page.

is how I really feel.