America cut me deeply, today.
Liberty’s light seen dimming away.
Pray and die while the bullet holes burn.
How to believe with perfect faith
When faith takes a fatal turn?
How to believe America’s great
When it’s its distrust we must learn?
This is not the pain one feels
When a wound is fresh and new.
This scrapes the bone with cold, deep steel,
A familiar tightening of the screw.
I am born to be cautious and anxious too.
I was raised to feel happy and blessed,
A first generation American Jew
From two stung by Hitler’s hornets’ nest.
Now is not the time to tell me I’m wrong,
To convince me my country is great.
I don’t really need to hear that old song
When there’s daily, uncontrolled hate.
I don’t really want to argue that long
While martyrs cry to G-d, “It’s too late!”
I cannot do it, not today,
Face disagreeable friends’ feigned dismay,
Face hypocrites fearing more from a Muslim afar
Than the armed Christian racist in the next car,
Than the blood libel bigot at the corner bar,
Than the disquieting fool they put in charge.
Prose and Thorn 