In Claremont Park
by the public pool,
picnic on a blanket,

tenements can’t
get here for trees,
traffic blares

but maybe it’s the starlings
or the Canada geese –

Verano –
I love the way you say it –
like island months transplanted –

and then el bebé
as your fingers plait
this rising sun –

so much more familiar
when it’s my face,
the tingle of your gentle sweat –

we’re having what we do not understand – 

milagro my mother says –
her word for anything family –

even though my finger’s bare
of wedding ring
and there’s fall in the wind –

the fall from grace
above all –

Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Harbinger Asylum, Petrichor Machine and Madcap Poets.