From the Tropics to This by Juanita Rey

Winter.

I hate to say the word.

Can only write it down.

It’s another name for nothingness,

this thing I fear.

Hot coffee won’t fill it.

Nor will the thump

of a radiator.

Or even an arm around me,

It’s a season without trees,

without temperature.

Every living creature

looks like it could die

at any moment.

Of slogging their way

through the emptiness.

Of being one and the same thing.

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.