DC PLACES ISSUE Scott Hightower   DIGNITY AT "TRUMPETS" for Arlyn Garcia-Perez "The Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution are all here, not far away, in high security vaults of extraordinary design." My friend then orders Bacardí Limón in her fine Cubano accent. If the city were overtaken by disaster, our most valued political documents would await— locked in their dignity—new readers. I'm still with the shower-whipped roses we sloshed by on our way from the sessile Dupont Circle Station maw: Odysseus and his men sailing away from Death's Island, and Aeneas and Dante finding their way after their dialogues in worlds without art; each a past informing the day... One of our tablemates, a nurse, is finishing his story. The denouement: at the end of a journey, a youth faces his grandfather for the first time in a bodega in Salinas, P.R. Secrecies are most often despicable. Five private missions edify one train of thought: It is a privilege to educate, it is a privilege to heal. Scott Hightower's third collection, Part of the Bargain, received the Copper Canyon Press's 2004 Hayden Carruth Award. He was born on a ranch in central Texas, and presently lives in New York City.   Published in Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 2006.