ROATAN, HONDURAS
To our tour guide, whose name
I don’t remember, who showed us
the big bridge, the Iguana farm, and the beach.
Who told us the way to tell if barracuda
had been cooked properly was to throw a piece
out the back door. If the ants die on it, it's bad.
To our tour guide, the mother of three, who schooled us
on the history of the island, who insisted
the black English speakers were
natives, never African slaves.
The woman whose green eyes–
I wondered– did they run
in her family or were they
a surprise to her mother. To our guide
who admitted she was grateful
for the guy from Trinidad, who kept comparing
the two islands, kept asking
about how they prepared plantains,
cashews, what sounded like “red fruit,”
how she was glad he kept talking,
how it put her at ease
though his relatives— also on the bus—
kept shushing him, reminding him
they weren’t the only ones
who had paid for this tour.
To that tour guide who asked
if my sister and I were students,
who said she loved to see
young people getting their education,
how desperate they were for colleges
on the island. And my sister
and I had to admit we had just graduated,
and the cruise was our gift to ourselves. I wish I’d said
more now than, “thank you,” wish
I could have given more than that
three-dollar tip.
This poem was originally published in Time of Singing Poetry Journal.