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(Dis)ambiguation

America, I hear, as in American, American dream.
	America—and a portion of the continent vanishes.
America: the name slips out my mouth 
	like a sticky cherry pit. America, I say again, 
and this time I feel as if I’ve plucked 
	a geranium from Alejandra’s eyes, 
the park in Trujillo, where we used to play hide-and-seek. 
	Years ago, I learned America was a word coined 
centuries earlier by someone not from America, 
	after an Italian explorer who circled 
the shadows of America’s earthen body, the earliest use 
	of America being almost ten thousand years after
la papa—the potato—was replanted 
	over and over and weaned off its venom
by hands often made invisible by America.
	Reader, I can’t say America without noticing
its first button is in the wrong hole.