day SEVEN

They Already Built the Wall

They already built the wall.
It’s right there in the Three-Fifths Compromise,

and every three-fifths compromise,
from there on out. 

They already built the wall,
because in elementary school
we used to call handball “chink,”
and I had a mortgage and a master’s degree
before I knew what I was saying.

They already built the wall,
because when my father sold our white-flight suburban home
to a family from Columbia,
our neighbors came to the door to confront him about it.

They already built the wall,
because during my expensive liberal-arts education,
I used to look down on people who had jobs
my expensive liberal arts-education was supposed to save me from.

They already built the wall,
because I used to think every mediocre white man
with an elegy for a world and women that were supposed to belong to him was an artist,
but “you can’t spell crap without rap.”

They already built the wall,
because in 2016 it became perfectly clear,
to love one’s country is to understand its flaws,
and everything else is just childish infatuation
and a vote for the Orange Menace.

And the fact that it took this long for me to notice,
means they already built the wall,
and I was on the inside.

                                       --Matthew Ussia