Leonel Rugama

Henry’s Elegy For Leonel Rugama

In a gunfight with the Guardia Nacional
in the barrio bang bang bang
they shoot you dead.

Later a friend tells me
one of the freedom fighters killed
was Leonel Rugama, the poet.

I bow my head in silence
and try to pretend it didn’t happen
but, of course, it happened.

And now that almost forty years have passed
I re-read one of Leonel’s poems
comparing the Apollo fights

with the poverty of Nicaragua.
The Shuttles are grounded like Leonel
and poverty defies the gravity of earth,

floats in our faces weightless
in Austin, San Antonio, El Paso
and the rest of the our great nation.