While I'm Not a Heroic Couplet
       

America, I am not a negative
nor a positive. I am your zero

sum game, what I take you take
as stolen from you. My life is to be had

for a song, free as
America. To you I am nothing

but a number, O gasp you are startled
I am still here. Oh a zero,

made by my Song ancestors
instead of leaving a space

on the page. J says,
it's American, not American't!

I disagree, it's the can as in trash,
I feel obliged to take myself out.

In time. America, I only wish
you would leave me

a space, at the very least
on paper, to sign.

I am still right
here.

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Copyright © 2020 Stella Wong All rights reserved
from American Zero
Two Sylvias Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission