Imagine the inferno billowing inside
the ashen cheeks of an American
German
as she first heard of the Shoah,
took her first shower
after learning of gas-gushing plumbing.
Imagine her rueful shame
that she had not known,
not spoken against Hitler
while time yet remained,
perhaps at her having sent pennies
to plant a tree in Heidelberg.
Imagine her guilt,
fellow daughters and sons
of the Jewish American diaspora,
who support the Right of Return
for those who are entitled,
who support the bantustans,
barbed wire,
and impending ethnic murders
in what you call Yeretz Israel
but millennia of Palestinians
have called
“home.”
Published in Sam Friedman. 2016. Grief and Rage. Central Jersey Coalition against Endless War.