No one thinks of Tegucigalpa, unless you are the man
at the Christmas party who sells weapons to Honduras 
and smilingly bets on war. Or you have been there,
you wear the miles of markets, a cascading undergarment
beneath your calm white shirt, the slick black tiles
of the plaza, a girl coming early, little hum and bucket,
to polish them. Near the river, a toothless man kept
parrots and monkeys in his yard. ¿Por qué? He said, “love.”

They don’t want to hear about Tegucigalpa because it makes
them feel like a catalogue of omissions. Where is it?
Now who? As if Houston were everything, the sun comes up
because commerce exists…But if you kept driving south,
past Mexico’s pointed peaks, the grieving villages of
Guatemala, you would reach the city that climbs hills,
opening its pink-lidded eye while the Peace Monument
draws a quiet breath. A boy stands all day skewering
lean squares of beef till the night hisses on his grill.

Where is it? At the end of the arm, so close I tap the
red roofs with my finger, the basket seller weaves a
crib for my heart. Think of the countries you have never
seen, the cities of those countries, start here, then ask:
How bad is it to dress in a cold room? How small your own
wish for a parcel of children? How remarkably invisible
this tear?


    
            Peace Monument - Tegucigalpa - Honduras