25 Years Later Berlin is Free

And we are?

We’re not in China

This isn’t Berlin

We aren’t tourists on the Mall

Why did we build this massive wall?

No declaration of war with our amigos

No DMZ to mark a truce

Are we keeping the terrorists out

Or are we barricading ourselves in?

Desperate people

Like water rising at the levee

Or the mice under my kitchen

They find and exploit

The tiniest weakness to get in

Or out

Slay a wicked problem with a wall?

What else could we buy for $1.5 billion

A year?

More high-tech surveillance?

Too late to think outside the fence

Attack the roots growing under the fenceposts

Maybe welcome temporary guests

To do the work we won’t

Maybe make employers responsible

Market forces — like water and rodent

Maybe then focus on the risky ones

Maybe in 2000 years we’ll recoup

The cost

As a tourist attraction

Gazing at my bit of concrete

Flashbacks of pickaxe and glee

25 years gone

Are we so free afterall?

Getting hard to avoid

Stopping short of quoting Floyd

Maybe Reagan instead

Mr. Obama — Tear down this wall!

photo credits: National Archives; U.S. Customs and Border Protection