Managua, Nicaragua

Warm winds
and cool nights,
taco dinners, served on a
drooling man's cranium,
songs sung in Spanish,
next to a lone guitar.
Yesterday, yesterday,
a cheapass margarita
a Tano or two,
¿para ochenta cordobas?
Si, why not? because we are Americans.

Because we are Americans in Nicaragua
we will drink,
we will drink una cerveza
even though it tastes like shit
and we won't get drunk from it anyway
It doesn't matter, we will drink it, in a casino,
at eleven thirty before noon
because we are Americans.

We will pay $1500
to stay in a beautiful hotel
a hotel with marble floors,
and apple-spearing murals
and a majestic pool, with majestic
bronze pool boys.

Because we are Americans,
we will be suspicious of the natives,
that they will steal
from our spoiled, sassy mouths,
we will point to the graffiti on the walls,
the ones that say "chinga" o "puta"
and we will laugh, too busy to see the ones that say
"FSLN, viva la juventud"

We will speak in broken Spanish
to the meseros and tienda owners,
trying to learn culture,
proud that we can regurgitate a few words
that we happen to remember
from high school.

We will get stares from the brown boys,
on the streets selling fruit,
weaving between moving traffic.
We will play doctor and patient,
we will give the sick medicine,
we will tell the ones with tumors
that they have pink eye,
we will give the children ibuprofen
when they have bad dreams
and no one will care,
because we are Americans,
and we have no liability
in this beautiful sad country
with its beautiful sad people.

They will tell us they love us,
because we are rich,
because we are beautiful,
because we are tan,
because we are Americans.
When we ask them,
do you like Americans?
they will laugh politely
and say,
"Si, me gustan americanos."
And we will believe them,
si, we will believe them,
because we are Americans.