cofradia, honduras
you began, as if a diamond long-unturned,
in a land of destitute, banana-peel ghosts
from three hundred years of missing revolts.
the street in front sloped like a misfit
of urban planning, strewn with calderas of garbage
and the leathery frames of sun-scarred iguanas.
our house was almost a dangerous example,
too sound in its design
and too bright in its colors
to withstand an encroaching flood
of shacked poverty.
the bed on which you were made,
lumpy like grandma’s best oatmeal,
an arbitrary mattress of miserable fabrics.
the room which contained the bed
on which you were made, a cobwebbed cell
adorned only by the molded impressions of past memories.
the kitchen in the house
that contained the room that contained the bed
on which you were made, a safehouse
of sinful aromas that puritans would burn at the stake,
tropical nourishment for the womb
that would come to shape you like an orb of clay.
our kitchen would cry out with bagged rice,
cylinders of unripe plantains begging freedom
from their maternal branch, fallen flakes of tortillas
making an edible archipelago
for legions of cucarachas.
somedays, the twin hammocks swayed like pendulums
across the narrow porch, which opened
into the embrace of jade mountains
amok with jaguars and bromeliads.
you began, a diamond quickly unturned
when your peerless gleam was seen
by eyes akin to cosmic miners.
