The hate by Jacqueline Schaalje

The hate

If you ask ten or thirty people

whom they hate, they say

they've never hated anyone.

So why don't people shoot

up when the chair says: foxes

steal our houses, or the clerk

calls jellyfish parasites,

or the fundraiser harps on daisies

as stingy, or the politician says

our lives are more important

or the anchor says female ants

can't navigate, or cucumbers

are stupid, or the intellectual writes

(although quite rare) the enemy

deserves to die? Why are we

sitting there like dodos,

with bulging eyes, silent,

as if we never read the covenant,

or the law, or pledged an oath

in the scouts, or to our teachers.

Did we never have carers

who taught us to love, not hate,

and would they be pleased at what

we built, a society that grows

apart, where children are taught

to fight, but only with their thumbs

and with budget-shrinking arms,

instead of with their mouths, to berate

and ostracize the haters?