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March 20, 2019

No one wanted to be Haman

at the Purim carnival,

sniveling villain who would separate

Jews’ heads from necks

if steadfast Mordechai

and his courageous cousin Esther

hadn’t saved the day.

All the girls wanted to be Esther, ’natch,

mothers’ nightgowns sashed with silk

over our short-sleeved leotards, 

rhinestone ear clips pinching flesh,

cardboard crowns looped under our ponytails.

The boys dressed up as King Ahasuerus,

striding down the temple’s halls 

with proclamations of beneficence,

waving scepter broomsticks 

wrapped in tin foil.  

The point is, 

nobody wanted to be the bad guy,

the one who people feared and hissed,

who whispered “murder” into royal ears

before the voices of compassion 

drowned out bigotry to teach the lesson:  

we are all the same.

Which brings me to our current 

costume ball of hate-filled pageantry,

gragers spun by crowds in keen encouragement

of every mocking swipe, each cruel incitement

to eliminate the foreigner-

anyone whose race, religion, skin tone

makes us feel ill at ease and doubt

our clear superiority.    

Maybe it’s time to reimagine Sunday school,

when we all dressed up as heroes

and booed evil ones together,

when we studied what the difference was

between the dark and light.

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