American Crown
Theodora Helgason

oh, you must feel majesty, in your coronacastle 
touchlessly transmitting your spell to me. who are you, 
evanescent America? why curse me with this enmity? am i 

writing this or has this been written into stories a priori? these 
yellowed pages tell me we’ve been here before. mother 
warns me of civil war and the baptism of handmaids. but i am 

only American twenty and this is my first ballot and i
shrink to violence. when this spoiled tangerine 
imprisons us all, some prisons will be iron but your 
cage, like your toilet seat, will be golden.