Aileen Cassinetto is the Poet Laureate of San Mateo County and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Banyan Review, Cultural Weekly, Fellowship, Guest, Marsh Hawk Review, Nonconformist Magazine, and Vox Populi, among others.
More By This Poet
There are no kings in America
we are not that kind of country.
We are sanctuary for the hungry,
the homeless, the huddled,
held together by an idea
our immigrant fathers believed in.
Rendered, it meant independence.
Pursued, it kindled war, ordinance,
a fighting chance. Forty thousand
musket balls, by themselves, did not
shape the...