In Denial on Diversity

Denial’s not content to just deny
a hated statement in its false reply
but manifests compulsions we can’t quit
to forcefully assert the opposite.
Denial must be ever-vigilant
against internal whispers of dissent:
The more we name it “strength,” the more we feel
diversity is our Achillies’ Heel.
If strangers left us more secure than friends,
or migrant waves that brutally upend
settled perceptions of how neighbors are
enriched us with the foreign and bizarre, 
we’d never doubt diversity were strength
nor feel the need to harp on it at length.