I want to read you a couple of poems
from this series called Dear America that's
trying to feel my way into the madness of our time.
I'll read two or three of these.
Are you doing all right out there?
[BREATHES DEEPLY]
This is number four.
Dear America.
Please, it's time to feel the pain that underlies your cruelty
and tend to it.
This was 20 years ago, the cabbie said.
I was riding with him to a hotel in Revere, Massachusetts.
I was dancing at a club, he said,
with this beautiful Venezuelan girl.
This was Boston.
He'd been in the city already six years, Puerto Rican,
he said.
He'd voted for Trump.
What his mother keeps telling him
was the worst decision of his life.
So many suffering at home after the storm
without water or power.
Venezuela helped, Brazil helped.
Nothing from the US, he said.
I told him, I live in Arizona, so much suffering on the border.
His mother, he said, says God doesn't want
people to suffer like that.
That night in the club, he said, agents burst in,
started rounding up people.
The Venezuelan was terrified.
My nine-year-old daughter is home sleeping, she whispered.
I can't let them take me.
He whispered back, whatever they ask you, just say yes.
Just say yes.
He took her hand and walked up to the agents.
Are you a citizen?
Yes, he said, I'm Puerto Rican and this is my wife.
Yes, she said.
He held her hand.
He saw her years later.
She whispered, you saved my life.
[SIRENS]