Hannah Silverstein

America Is a Cross Between

                                               After Catie Rosemurgy

An apostrophe and a possession.
A retreat and a quarantine.
A meeting request and an ambush.

A screwdriver and a screw.
A spitball and personal protective equipment.

Caller ID and an ineptly sabotaged trust.
An open book and that gas station mirror you scratched your initials into.

Pop Rocks and your neighbor’s AR-15 firing range.
The ugly duckling and an irate gander hissing you back to open water.

A brilliant sunset over the hemlock trees
and a brilliant sunset clause over your civil liberties.

A brilliant sunny spot
that hides the chill of your gun
and a chilly brilliant country
that pretends to worship the sun.

Hannah Silverstein                            

Hannah Silverstein is a recent graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cider Press Review, LEON Literary Review, Whale Road Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Terroir Review, The Ekphrastic Review, SWWIM Every Day, and The New Guard. She lives in Vermont.