Dear Aleph,

You’re correct. Every nation hates

its children. This is a requirement of statehood.

This and empathy.

Empathy means

laying yourself down

in someone else’s chalklines

and snapping a photo. A Chrysler

with four bullet holes

in the rear passenger door

just drove by calmly, signaling

before it turned. Oh, Mrs. Evans,

you’re such a wonderful woman,

said, supposedly, Ethel Rosenberg

to the woman who walked her

to the chair.

It was empathy on Evans’s part.

Love on Ethel’s.

I am a wonderful woman

more often than I care to admit.

We are going to have

our first woman president.