Your New Locks

Your new locks will not stop evil
from entering the building to shoot us.
Evil finds its way in
past the flimsy logic of locks.
We carry it in with us.
We harbor it in our briefcases
with our memos of greed.
Planting seeds everywhere
of love and truth to confound it
in its goose-step progress,
to trip it with the heart,
that has always been all
we can do that really works against evil.
The thing about love and truth,
as opposed to your new locks,
is that even if they do not save us
from bodily harm, evil still
will not have won,
will not have closed down
the little friendly kiosk of our heart,
the one the children skip around
while we chat about this mornings news
over the daffodils,
magazines, and chewing gum

                —Mohja Kahf