Dear Aleph
By Solmaz Sharif
You’re correct. Every nation hates
its children. This is a requirement of statehood.
This and empathy.
Empathy means
laying yourself down
in someone else’s chalklines
and snapping a photo. A Chrysler
with four bullet holes
in the rear passenger door
just drove by calmly, signaling
before it turned. Oh, Mrs. Evans,
you’re such a wonderful woman,
said, supposedly, Ethel Rosenberg
to the woman who walked her
to the chair.
It was empathy on Evans’s part.
Love on Ethel’s.
I am a wonderful woman
more often than I care to admit.
We are going to have
our first woman president.
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