Down here, we still hoist that old flag, watch it twist and flap in the wind
The way it did over the smacking lips and cracking whips of white men
selling black men
Their sons carried it into battle, and died for it, from Gettysburg to Louisiana
For the right to be buried in their own separate cemeteries underneath that
star spangled banner
Senior year, you could go deaf from all the talk of terrorists and Muslim
fundamentalists
And I thought it strange in a town where so called believers blew up women’s
clinics we had the gall to act so offended
And when it would come time to say the Pledge in class, I would sit my ass
down at that desk
And the only words of it I said were under God I figured we were beyond the
help of anybody else
Flags
Flags
Flags
Granddaddy unfolds it like a flower after the Lord’s Prayer, humble and quiet
and still
While the dew still lies on the grass, while the sun hides beyond the old steel
mill
And I place my hand over my little heart, and he holds the salute he held
overseas
And, looking up into his shining eyes, I behold a glory that I cannot see
Flags
Like a drop
Flags
in a bucket
Flags
Like dust
Flags
on a scale
Flags
Insufficient
Flags
All of y’all’s nations
Flags
All of y’all’s flags