Susana calls me on Tuesday

She asks me: “How are you?”
I tell her, “As good
as I can be for a Tuesday.”

I ask her,”How are you?”
She says, “Not so good
for a Tuesday.”

Her answer gives me pause.
“Tell me what is not good
with you then.”

“Do you have any influence?”
“Depends,” I say and ask,
“Are you in jail?”

“My brother is in his truck,
stuck in Nicaragua.”
She says, “Donnie has a friend…”

“In Nicaragua?” I ask?
“Yes, he knows the President.
President says he can’t do anything.”

Immediately, I am back in Nicaragua.
Daniel Ortega, a Marxist-Leninist,
is the Commander of the Sandinistas.

I remember how he could do
everything as Bianca Jagger knows,
and now she thinks the President

has told the military to kill
them all–
all protesters.

College students
and the Church, want him
to give up his office; hold elections he would lose.

The young believe he has given up 
Sandinista for Orteganista,
his dictatorship, his wife as his Vice President.

Susana says, “The protesters have stopped
6,000 truckers across Nicaragua,
and my brother is only 67 kilometers

away from the Costa Rica border.
I remember the 1980’s and 1990’s.
I remember the Contras.

When the rebels made gains in a dry spring,
the U. S. and Great Britain invaded Granada
to quell Cuban, Russian gains there.

Granada asked for help.
Castro said, “I don’t have the money
to take on the U. S. military at this time.”

So times have changed. but politics
are still Ortega, known to lie and seek new
alliances when they serve him better.

Ortega counts, among his friends,
the Russians, the Iranians, and
the Chinese who promise

to build a canal through the best land,
that the government will take through
the power of imminent domain,

land that will belong to Ortega
when the Chinese promise fails, 
but the land remains.

The troops, offered by the U. S.
to help restore order,
and get the sides to talk peace,

are stopped at the border
in Costa Rica.
I have to tell Susana,

“I will not fly in there,
for all my friends are dead
or have left the jungle,

except for one,
and he is
living in Texas.

I tell her to tell her brother
he should find a young woman
to help him.

On Wednesday,
I call Susana.
She tells me,

“He found a woman,”
and I breathe a sigh
of relief.