tide of misery
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On the Border
by Bruce J. Berger

 

 

 

Children behind fences fight for room to breathe, line up to drink from the only

            source of water, the toilet, overflowing.

Officials swear allegiance to their god

            and people mocked as snowflakes are arrested

for trying to quench the thirst of the desperate.

            It’s called a dog pound, but our canine friends

are treated better.

 

Children in cages fall one on the other, crying for parents,

            not understanding how they’ve fallen into slavery.

We see only a sliver of this suffering, because

            they bar the press, the cameras pushed away;

the truth would be fake news, anything that sounds like

            concentration camps must be fake, no Hitler he,

the man in charge.

 

No diapers, multiple deaths from the flu, a three-year old caring

            for his one-year old brother, separated from their parents

to protect them from … trafficking? No lie is too great to spread.

            No lie is too great to be believed by the cult

of worshippers. No comment from the thugs in charge

            because of litigation. If we speak, what we say will be held

against us.

 

Conditions compared to torture facilities, and five-year-olds

            with PTSD; 900 crammed into a space that should hold

no more than 125: six bodies slammed against each other

in space meant for one. Our holy government!

Oh great man brought to us by God Himself! Requests for medical help

            rejected by the guards, the ones who call immigrants

names that can’t be used on public media.

 

They’re proud of the way they treat children, they say,

            because it pays to be mean, whose fault is it anyway,

they ask, as if the children are guilty. But let’s steal funds to build

            a wall, and whoever dies, dies. The man in charge calls it a disaster,

but he doesn’t mean his camps. He means that the disaster is a court ruling

that these children must be treated

with dignity.

 

 

 

a line, (a blue one)

 

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