I wonder how to protect you
keep you safe from uniforms
with men inside
who have pledged to follow
orders in prisons
where doors are locked
so I can’t get in and you
can’t get out even though
all you want is your mother
or brother or sister
and the crying of other children
warns of danger as if
there was anything you
could have done different
and the uniformed bodies
are not smiling but hard
and I suspect your infant heart
beats louder than your screams
sensing that something
you can’t name has gone
terribly wrong.
But these words are merely
a stranger’s attempt
to do something, anything
like send a card with butterflies
that opens to a nursery rhyme
to make the terror go away
knowing she can't.
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