We are not

extinct, though I thinkmyself into the past.

You wake upin the middle

of the night certainthere is someone

outside your window,afraid

that we will do to youwhat you’ve done to us.

A bullet

sneaking through thetrees, smallpox-infected

blankets presented to youas housewarming gifts—this threat of painis worse

than the pain itselfand when I speak

it’s to make you ache.

“What if we took all this anger born of righteous love and aimed it?”