yoro, honduras
out here, in the republic of no men,
unfettered by any evidence of testosterone
and x-y chromosome
there are no males over thirteen
or less than eighty.
all the men who used to be here
no longer have local addresses,
all those men, once honduran,
are now caught in the straitjacket of an alien flag.
the fields in this village are brown and limited,
there are no longer enough tears to water the soil.
every woman has transcended pain and loss
and pretended that her blood does not boil.
western union is like the town hall, a modern
box of carnival glass and fortress door,
with a queue that starts before cockcrow each morning
and remains until four.
the few crops in this village are flush with locusts
and sustained by drought,
every woman has transcended pain and loss
and left important farming tools to pout.
out here, in the republic of no men,
nice houses spring up like tulips
in a plain of trampled weeds,
built by the labor of misplaced hands
not permitted to be present
in yoro, frayed knuckles and calloused fingers
emblematic of the most manly sorrow
-the pliant flesh tools upon which the vast fortunes
of a republic of many men
must forever depend.
