the name means apples lingers on your lips
like honey yet the place it names is sandy
dry with ice-cold winters baking summers
rows of drafty barracks barbed wire
armed towers soldiers all these to guard
the many thousands (half are children)
sent on shrouded trains they carried only
what they could homes shops taken over
pets left behind some given a week notice
some only days to gather a life it was
a mistake president reagan said in the
rose garden later some scant recompense
but what could bring back sons in special
units dead in france italy what could remake
scattered lives it’s now one of our nation’s
parks there’s a film yet here we are again
spewing detention deportation danger
women children again behind ten-foot
barbed wire 2400 in dilley tx, 500 plus in
karnes guarded by US Home Security kids
scared of soldiers unfamiliar inadequate
food read for yourself LATimes April 11 ’16
how short how very short our memories
how shrunken our compassion how ugly
we renew our fear we who are aliens all
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2016.
