Nicaragua 2007

The girl

in Nicaragua

was wearing

blue shorts and

a tee shirt

her face was

made up

like a Geisha

white powder

with thick

red lines

around her eyes

she pushed

a baby carriage

with a doll

in the seat

the people

from her

village said

it took 5

of them to

pry the dead

child from her

hands so they

gave her the doll

to try to

stop her tears

she was not

here for the

medical clinic

we had set up

in the village

she waited in

no line asked

for no help

just walked

among her

people talking

to the ghost

of her dead child

looking for answers

in everyone’s eyes.

 

 

The Comfort

that ship

was bigger

than our

hospital

back home

but on

this ocean

it was

a camel

in the

eye of

a needle

I never

really knew

how huge

the ocean

was until

one morning

a storm

pitched

the ship

so violently

that it

left us

feeling too

sick to

even walk

out to

the helicopter

that took

us into

El Salvador

and the

hospital we

set up there

three of

us puked

out the

back of

the truck

as a

flock of

angry black

buzzards

dropped from

the sky

biting each

other to

see who

got the

biggest

pieces.