Marjorie Maddox 

Liberty Quarantined

—virtual tour, May 2020

Outside,
at last, here,
I want to be inside,
at last, there, and I am,
not across the choppy bay or
too tired at the base with a stroller
and two toddlers, but clicking and turning,
high-stepping up all those 154 steps, then scaling,
even in my too obedient past prime imagination, all
305 feet, then—touting ultimate freedom—up and into
the off-limits since 1918 thinly coated 24K gold flame O say can you see
me here at home—stretched out in the fenced-in backyard,
cyber-traveling—but also there by the dawn’s early light
way before official operating hours once upon a time
when the world still operated we hold these truths
O give me your tired say can you your poor, see
Your tired masses yearning at the tiptop
of the world on fire to breathe free
even here at the bottom, wretched
refuse even here, homeless,
homebound, even
here.

—-

Previously published at Silver Birch Press

Statue of Liberty, Virtual Tour

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