These political poems appeared in a small chapbook published by Westview Press in 1982 with my colleague and friend, Renny Golden, who went on to become an award-winning poet.  The poems reflect my political preoccupations at the time:  the Central American wars, the threat of nuclear power gone awry, and the ongoing scourge of racism.  As we see deaths from the Covid 19 virus  now rise to astronomical levels in the U.S., these poems are a reminder that in many other parts of the world--and in pockets of our own country-- the gift of life wasn't ever assured.