Sandinista Homes
J.B. Hogan

During the day there were Spanish classes,
in the afternoon political talks.
Afterwards, in the barrio, pick up baseball games
played on a rocky, overgrown field.

Early evening would bring a lecture
on local history, neighborhood duties,
heroes of the revolution and maybe
a long walk to what passed for a bar,
with no pitchers and no glasses and
only the national beer.

In the dark of night,
the walk back to Sandinista homes:
little homes in little houses with dirt floors and
huge water bugs but not so much food or water,
yet always just enough electricity
to play the radio and hear,
even from a small cot in a dark
blanket-partitioned room in back,
the sound of popular songs from the north:
songs soft, incongruous, and unexpectedly melancholy.