Duplicity

Give me your tomatoes,

your peppers, your hybrid  melons,

yearning to be consumed,

but not so much your tired,

your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free.

The wretched refuse of bowing

to chemicals and corporations

has our shores teeming with toxicity,

and our hearts quivering with xenophobia.

The tempest-tossed who dream

of hope will not so much be met

 with lamp at golden door

as laser sight and incarceration.

All the while, our consumptive greed

turns a blind eye to the duplicity

of deportation and the rending

of family's fabric, to which

we claim undying allegiance.

Who will resurrect liberty?

© 2013 Todd Jenkins

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

― Emma Lazarus