THE LINCOLN REVIEW
MY ARRANGEMENT
His hola!
sounds so perfunctory
so why should I
pay it any attention.
I tell him I’m busy
not that I’m pregnant.
I have flowers to arrange.
For someone
who’s barely
set foot in a garden,
I’m getting good at this.
My stomach
may pull me out of shape
but my roses are
perfectly bunched.
Someone will give these
as a gift of love.
There is no such name
for what he gave me.
He comes by the store every day
but eventually I’ll grow so big,
I’ll become invisible.
Just a ramera
with a child that could be anyone’s.
I have been foolish.
He’s been like his hola! –
a greeting
that can’t say goodbye enough.
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.
ISSN 2632-4423