bouncing truck of tourists
full of
"I'm Angie from Chicago"
"He-LLO, Angie!"
everybody now
you say your name is tour guide Eddy
you say 1 Dominican second = 5 minutes
you say recycle our glass bottles
or else you'll have to pay
you say today we are your family
you say get your camera
to take a picture
of a very old tree
i try to snap where trunk meets ground
you crack a joke
or half of one
about proximity
here we have the public health clinic
now down the road a bit
look
here's the cemetery
overgrown with green
maybe 20 headstones
not arranged in rows
flashes of conversation:
the house over there
was built by Trujillo's son
they don't live there now
you graduated in '97
afterwards to private school
$2/gallon for gas here
How much in your country?
$1.63
what about the colors on the houses?
pink for san miguel
blue for peace
azul
Why don't they build them bigger?
Because they're poor.
time to look at one up close
we pay a visit
no introductions
to:
-the woman at the sewing machine
-gray haired woman just outside the door
-woman serving tiny cups of coffee
puppy passed around
seems like there's one at every stop
kids in the back of a truck
no men seem to be around
(The palm trees were watching us all.)
on the wall a sticker:
I'm not poor because I have Christ
down the road some more
you tell jokes in increments,
are silent past the mountains
bump, bump bounce
bumpbump bump bounce
beer break, cocoa farm, cockfight in the distance, lunch, rum shack, then the beach
with each finished
block of clock:
"My family,"
you'd shout.
"Time to get back on the truck."