Photo courtesy of nbcnews

 

You ask me to sign a card to the outgoing president

and his teacher spouse. Happy to do so while biting

my tongue and repeating the mantra that this

is a time for peace and good will, to forgive

 

foolish, incomprehensible acts of support

for perpetrators of mass murder. Yes, I  need

to sign my disagreement with the two thousand

pound bomb shipments, the failure to provide

 

sufficient food and water, to turn and put

your spokesperson’s head in the sand

while hospitals and universities, aid workers

and journalists were sniped and bombed;

 

and children, oh the children, the women,

thousands upon thousands dead, thousands

upon thousands of legs and arms broken, faces

burnt beyond repair. And what about the repair

 

Mr President, this holiday season? Where

can they go the wounded when visas are denied

routinely? Where can they go this Christmas

while rumors of the ceasefire continue to whirl

 

like dust storms in the desert of our political lives.

I am sorry Mr President that I cannot weigh

your joining picket lines, relief of student debt,

stimulus to the economies of all the states,

 

pardoning federal prisoners on Death Row.

I cannot put those on the scales of justice while

the killing fields are alive with cries of survivors

of bombs and bullets you continue to authorize.