to the small boy in all the photos
(some show him smiling tho’ not all do):
you can learn to sort the fears like the plastic blocks
you used to build the model of Washington, D.C.
on the dining room table.                                          
                                               Not all last for long,
we take our worlds apart and there is no loss,
we build again.                          
                             Not all fears are the same:
yes, some are like the deep end of the motel pool,
a place you can drown and die.                                                    
                                                          Others move you
to kick and rise. Sort the worries one by one,
pick up each one and remember not all are the same:
yes, you’ve passed through the checkpoints,
surrendering the passport to mute officials,
waiting in the limbo between borders,
and then walked free of language and maps
on battered buses to Jerusalem.
Someone will help you sort the broken pieces,
some that seemed like sins to you,
secrets through the screen to the priest in the dark.
New dwellings will rise, white or clear blocks mixing,
then topped with the red lintels, fixing
new places to live where deserts
bleach the bricks
and winds
reshape.