First World Contempt

I would like to make him live one day

the way he has made others live.

I would like him to wake up in rubble

with dust in his belly and throat,

and walk, on blistered feet, to somewhere 

somebody said there might be food

and find none. I would like him to know

those who raise his plight in the rich nations

are dragged off to prison 

for the words that they have 

on their T-shirts. 

I would like him to know

jokes more callous than his,

and less funny, are being made about him 

by the golf club bores 

and the roundabout painters. 

I would like him to learn what it's like 

to feel first world contempt. 

I know that I ought not to want this.

That it is uncharitable,

even to him; rather, what I should want

is for a new spirit to grow in him,

inspire him to right his own wrongs

then go out to right more. This is 

what I should want. 

That is not what I do want.