Everywhere, on the sidewalks, in the gutters, right outside my door. Flourishing in the streets of Tegucigalpa, like leftover confetti from Mardi Gras. Lining the paths, nestled in the gravel, the broken concrete, and overgrown weeds. Coloring the landscape with orange and green.

Proliferating around garbage cans, discarded bottles, tires, and take out boxes, liberated to the acrid landscape around.
  
Men, cutting back the peels, devouring the tropical flesh, delectable, united to pits. Dark skin and eyes, their accents singing, so different from my own.

I stepped carefully, but always underneath, a sweet stickness, clinging to my soles. A bond to the red dirt, platanos fritos, and cattle roaming the street.

When I returned to the wide boulevards, pristine and meticulously clean, I stopped watching my feet, looking for mango peels underneath.

My feet
hit the street
eyes down
cast on the ground
trying not to be distracted
by the soldier with a gun on the corner
now I reacted.

Turning my head in circles to the burning sky,
the noises of confusing cars wrestle by.
I hope I can safely cross
for I was warned
there is chance of a loss.

While Tegucigalpa taxis fight for a ride,
I patiently wait for an ebbing tide.
My feet again hit the pavement,
as I wonder what a flower vendor's words meant.

I made it to the other side,
but my time I cannot bide.
For before the first bell rings,
in front of a classroom I will be standing.

Geografia I
Quando a Vila Jaiara era do mundo
O centro vital; se mais longe houvesse,
Lá chegara, aos saltos, de susto tomado
Em mim mesmo; silente rezava o missal.
Corria pelos campos – a savana, cerrado.

O medo do sistema heliocêntrico
Ainda não perdera: o medo de ser
Só. Eu vivia com meus irmãos e irmãs –
Éramos uma centena de bichinhos
Em torno de nossa mãe adotada,
A quem chamávamos de Senhora.
E em torno dela, tudo girava, girava...

Os grandes mandavam-nos, sorrateiros,
Andar pelo cerrado em busca de tudo:
Gabirobas, cajuzinhos, goiabas ...

Na Vila Jaiara havia tanta coisa mais.
A casa de Helena; de deuses onde doces.
Que à caminhada tornava clara para nós.
Centro luminoso em que a ceia do Senhor.

Não havia São Paulo ou Rio de Janeiro –
No máximo: Belo Horizonte, Araxá
Povoavam nossos sonhos.
E talvez Ouro Preto e Divinópolis –
Onde Dora reinava...
- Goiânia, São Petersburgo e Tegucigalpa – só no Atlas.

Anápolis era outra estória: a cidade, o comércio longe demais...
Ali na Jaiara estava o centro de tudo
e no centro de tudo o amor:
Laíde Epifânia me nomeara “Maninho”.

Naquele tempo, na nossa vila, não passava um rio.
Mas havia a fábrica de tecidos, onde Jorge –
Noivo de minha irmã – tecia a união e afeto
E me ensinava a andar de bicicleta.

Do Vietnã,  só soube no ginásio.
./.

There is no sky or earth
in the white van that crosses me over,
nor in the drywall coop painted red
where white men with tattooed arms
stood up and sit down, up and down,
unleashed erections pivoting
and searching for the best angle
to penetrate my forever painful ***.

I am called “pollo”, chicken,
“nuevo carne”, new meat
by the coyote who drove me
and the gringos who maul me,
their millet dollars tossed into hands
waiting unsmiling at the ajar door,
passage paid with my legs,
eggs for pollos not eaten.

Across the hall I hear the cackling
of men orgasming into torn sheets,
a softer clucking than the maras gangs
of Tegucigalpa roosting the food market
and the barrios for ****** violators.
In Honduras anyone can ******
a woman and nothing will happen.  
At least, in Texas they bury you.

They promise half of half of half of profits,
less than 50 pesos, dollars on a $50 John.
They dress me in corpse rags that
stink of gasoline and last *******;
feed me grain, maize, rain barrel water.  
My nakedness kills fleeing for freedom.
Nobody will risk saving a puta, *****
from a charcoal window stash house.

I dreamed once I could wear silk dresses
or richly sew them together for a small,
life with a good man and brown-eye kids.
The Chinese girl smuggled in from Fuzhou
can aspire to own a nail salon, or work
a massage parlor run by Sister Ping’s heirs.
Biloxi runaways can traffic on NY dreams.
I have only violation and suicide.

I traveled the border crossing between
Tegucigalpa and the American Dream,
enough  to forget why I crossed over,
times enough until I wasn’t me anymore,
to pace back and forth, scratch at
and settle in the straw of forgetfulness,
American in I have a  heavy debt
that only heaven can release.

Upon the fertile plains of Tegucigalpa: Canadians are cringing in their bath robes.