Dominicana

by Angie Cruz

Everyone’s always telling me to smile, even when there’s nothing to smile about. Smile, Ana! You’re a pretty, young girl! You haven’t seen the worst of life yet! So sometimes I smile so that people will leave me alone.

He has taken two of my dresses to make a single one. All this stuff he’s learned by working with men’s clothing. How to layer the fabric so it gives around the joints. Unlike women, men don’t tolerate being uncomfortable.

Poor, poor Teresa, seduced by macaroni and cheese by those Yankees in short-sleeved white shirts and dark pants who go from house to house, always in a pack, who hand food to the street children and lure them into their houses to sit around the living room and listen to how much God loves them.