I would hate to have your eyes,
bust open
watching chronicle after chronicle
surrounded by waters darkened
by your textured deja vu.
I see you Miss Liberty.
I see your torch never anything but burnt out with a lack of fulfillment.
Your lamp lit but your arms never outstretched.
So we beat the drum and call our door golden.
The faces of trauma and hope sailing past.
But we know fate is never
in any being’s palm.
I too, know the pain of the symbol
being kept from the virtue itself.
We’ve taken the tired,
the poor.
But they know not
the golden door
is just a golden door.
Rosetta Serrano is 15 years old, born and raised in New York City.
