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.