Hand-cuffed, body-slammed

on the hood of a car,

Liberty lies bent and broken.

A wall mural painted

in downtown Vegas

depicts her demise.

Her words challenged,

her flame extinguished,

an empty shattered plinth

south of Manhattan,

fractured remains of an ideal

lost in a labyrinth of selfish rhetoric,

of history denied.

Re-written words have been suggested

"Give me your tired and your poor

who can stand on their own two feet

and who will not become a public charge."

Forgotten stories from a distant time.

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