Summary

In “Atonement,” “Erasure,” the speaker introduces the reader to her “erasure poems,” describing them as “documents with their pieces plucked out” (90). She argues that this form is “not erasure, but expansion” (90).

In “The Letters,” the speaker rewrites an excerpt from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s, Hamilton.

In “Condolence,” the speaker describes a scourge on her people. She notes the ways the disease has been worse in her region “than elsewhere” (93).

In “Letter From a Nurse,” the speaker notes the inescapability of death. The government continues stealing Natives’ lands. The speaker’s people want to hope, but fear death.

In “[Ours],” George Washington writes a letter to Betty Washington Lewis about Black citizens.

In “Selma Epp,” Selma Epp falls ill “during the 1918 influenza epidemic” (97). People were desperate for her to survive and for the illness to go away.

In “The Donohue Family,” during...