Belize

(for Lucia)

 

In the jungle,

the howler monkeys throw sticks at you.

You climb trees

to escape the wild peccary and with machetes,

carve a path from one excavation site to another

only to find it grown back by morning.

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At breakfast,

you pour hot sauce on your eggs

to make them palatable.

At lunch,

you eat your peanut butter and jelly sandwich

under a tarp as the rain patters above you

and drizzles into puddles around your feet.

At dinner,

you’re so hungry,

it doesn’t matter that flying bugs fill the air and

land in your soup and on your spoon.

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But when the camp is quiet

and night arrives,

you lie in your tent

with his letter in your hand

and you sleep

and smile.