MAKING AMERICA GREAT

by Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard

When I was a professor I showed

my students films about the Third Reich

and asked them "Could this ever happen

here?" No, they responded in unison

Yet today, children as young as toddlers,

torn from their parents, are being

hauled off in crowded buses to prisons

in Texas, Florida, and all around the country.

They are crowded behind barbed wire

with no beds, blankets, soap, or toothpaste,

their clothes raising a stink that upsets

the guards. When they cry of thirst,

they are told to drink water from the toilets.

Many of them become ill with shingles,

chicken pox and scabies. And some

of them die, unknown. They weep,

traumatized and fearful. When local

people learn about these conditions

and arrive with supplies, they are turned

away, and people who provide food,

drink and shelter to immigrants crossing

the desert are charged with felonies.

Meanwhile, the President is holding rallies,

chanting "Make America Great Again,"

and the crowd wearing the red caps

cheers. Like the victories written

on rampant hunger and ruin

in Yemen, and his love letters

with North Korea, his pride is written

in misspelled tweets. There was the Third Reich,

and Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge,

but history is no longer part of our lives,

and we are so busy, so caught up

in a web of lies, as blind as the people

who lived in Germany, Cambodia,

Turkey, and worshiped the Angel of Death.

* * * * *

Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard is the author of 11 poetry books, two of which have won awards and 15 non-fiction books concerned with human rights, women's rights, social justice, illness and more. She was born in Trieste, Italy.