I am not a refugee

But a child you see

Hoping

To touch the hem of the garment of your

Human decency

Just wanting a scrap from the table of your infant

See?

I am just a small part

Of the huddled mass at your teeming shore

The Jesus you say you love

Knocking on your door

 

I am no poison m&m

no wolf at the door

I would be happy with a spot on your floor

With no pillow to lay beneath my head

No feather comforter

Like you keep on your bed

 

I am the least of these

Perhaps you’ve heard of me?

Would you make me sign your registry?

Or wear an ID?

Maybe a  yellow star?

I know it sounds crazy

but I would do it

just at the chance to sit where you are

Without a bomb fragment

Or Gunfire

Or shrapnel

whizzing past my head

Not knowing how or if my child will be fed

Or if at night as we lay us down to sleep if in the morning we’d

all

be

dead.

 

I don’t have to live like a refugee

That’s what Tom Petty said

As if in the end, it was all in my head.

As if I had had a say in the matter

As if I could stop every bullet that would shatter

My life into so many pieces the Kings Men couldn’t put me back together

 

If I come on a boat or on a donkey still inside my mother

What does it matter?

Will I get turned away at the inn like your brother

 

If I lie on the side of the road will you walk by

Saying

well…

If you were a veteran I would help.

If you were an American I would help

If I

Could be sure….

You are a Christian I would help

Hashtag all lives matter.

Whatever!

 

You say you are just trying to protect your own

You can’t even lay down your stone

And notice that you are living in a glass home

Throwing stones at yourself.

Turning away the Jews again at your shore and sending them back to die

Turning your face from the wounded

Maybe give being the Samaritan a try

Who is your neighbor?

The one you crucify?

If there is no greater love than to lay your life down

Can you still testify?

That you love me like you love yourself

Nah, just bust out that movie, Elf

And start singing carols and trimming the tree

And telling your kids about the nativity

And

keep

throwing

the stones

At your own homes

 

You were once the huddled mass yearning to breathe free

Now it is me

If only I could show up on an ultrasound machine

so you could see

my

still

beating

heart.