American Crown
Theodora Helgason (Scripps '22)

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.