By Elizabeth Shvarts

America is not a dream you fall asleep to;

Salvation set against the backdrop of sweet sequoia pines and sunsets dripping

with milk and

honey

So sickly sweet it stains enamel gilded

Gold

We gulp the Gulf stream waters greedily as if to

alchemize our bones

Ivory into ichor into “American” lest our limbs remain contorted in the shape of the

dash

before (-American);

Land of the free, home of the forgotten

But paradise is a mirage

We pledge allegiance to

The bread crusts and bullet shells Uncle Sam passes across the dinner table

While Lady Liberty stirs the melting pot

but Uncle Sam clamps muzzle on our mouths before we can get a taste knows too

well we salivate for slices of mango cut by shackled hands

Let us savor shades of freedom

incantation for a magic buried by the Board of Ed because our tongue was ripped

from our

mouths before we even stepped foot into the classroom

Uncle Sam tells us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps when our feet are bare

and blistered

From pounding the pavement paving a path to star-spangled salvation

Because we can’t afford an Uber to the golden gates

Because we know happily ever after is received on a first come, first serve basis

Packaged and sealed by the last to receive keys to the room where it happens and

the first to be

evicted

So we learn how to

slam fork and knife loud enough to wake the neighbors

Inversion of B-flat major into dissonance divestment

Till we stitch together the chords of a new song:

“This land is your land is my land

From the bodega corners to concrete battlefields

From morning rush melodies to the voice of my people our people rising above

the cacophony

of corporations chugging churning choosing to leave our lives on the chopping block

The tenor of a generation crescendos, our anthem front and center

This land is made for you and me and us

forever”