Rich misunderstandings
full of bile and consequence —

frosting
on a rotten cake.  People

stare across barbed cable
at each other, standing on soapboxes

built on fear, on arrogance,
on ignorance and outsized grievance —

wailing
you don’t know me, how dare you,

you’re not my kind —
who are among your kind?

Look like,
think like, bleed like,

weep like, feel like.
Like’s got everything to do with it,

and like is so brittle now
it breaks easily on a letter of law

or practice.  In the sulfur cloud
that dusts up after the word snaps

we lose each other.  We can’t see
how like we are.  We can’t sense

each other in the poison twilight,
and everyone’s got a knife.