Copper Tealight

September 27th 2018

tattered flags, wedding dress trains
white fringe, cached in dirt road
like baggy jeans, converse worn like religion.
Stockholm syndrome, always ran away

never left home, delicately telling 
time wearing, down eight years
down in the basement, duct-tape cuffed 
to a chair, bandage torn off slow

like a drag, on a thick cigarillo 
from fat lips, fat teeth
fat, you know the drill
ear didn't clover though, despite her Irish eyes

she isn't lucky, enough 
to have scars, that we can see
green with liberty
she is tall, held fire until it shattered

in '17, now she has flash backs
when men in black, held a pen 
to her nose and clicked, now 
she's just a rumor,

"I hear she used to represent freedom"

"I never knew her"

I believe, 
if the statue of liberty had a voice;
and she does...

I believe, 
if the statue of liberty had red heels;
she could run...

I believe, 
if the statue of liberty was a mother;
and she was,

she would have died,
a loud, running, mother,
too young.

-

Nicholas M. Coulombe