We love to pretend we’re Big People
who have managed well our fate.
But we are weak, frightened children,
saved by unearned generosity
or not saved at all.
Fearful of our tenderness,
believing most deeply in our on-our-own-ness,
we lash out against our shadows
stumbling across our border, our little ones
running for their lives.
They ought to master their destiny like us.
They ought to be abandoned like us.
This is no country for the meek,
the small,
the saved.