an occupation poem

little girl

all dressed up
with no place to go.
you’re smiling at us
and I don’t understand why
you choose to show that emotion
in this place of all places—surrounded
by memories of death and a feeling of being
trapped
in poverty and injustice
barricading you in—a Wall whose harsh, raw concrete
glares down at you and tells you that you are nothing.
but it does not reflect your spirit, somehow intact within.
if God has any mercy, may God somehow leave that
gentle innocence untouched and untarnished by the
ugly reality forced upon you.

Submitted by: JM