Cuernavaca Nights by J. B. Hogan

In ebbing light of dusk, 

across from the little city park,

large Tongolele mugs of beer in hand,

they packed the Bar Universal to savor the 

decline of day in this city of

eternal spring, eternal hope.

Young women selling pulseras,

cheap bracelets, pass through smiling,

smiles far more dazzling than their wares.

At nightfall, the crowd drifts away,

diminishes, rearranges into small groups

at this café, to that new watering hole,

moving slowly through the dark,

humidly throbbing heart of the town.

In a new bar, buckets of ice-chilled 

Coronitas at hand, new friends, 

old teachers, drink and laugh,

cultures new and old melding 

into one, merging for the moment

in the dark, pulsing heart of this

land beneath the volcano.

J. B. Hogan has published over 300 stories and poems and eleven books, including Bar Harbor, Bounty Riders, Time and Time Again, Mexican Skies, Tin Hollow, Living Behind Time, Losing Cotton, The Rubicon, Fallen, The Apostate, and Angels in the Ozarks (nonfiction, local professional baseball history). He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.