[Newspoetry] cheap flags

[Kate McDowell]

Cheap flags.
Only 3 months of war
and they're already tattered.
Strips of white and red
trail behind Subarus.
Blue fields, once smaller in
surrounding rectangles,
feel their demise creeping
slowly up the stripes.
Some stars try to escape, they 
don't want to be part of this
flag, they try to fly off in the highway wind,
only to discover that
they're all sewn on or stained into
the self-same fraying fabric,
losing threads,
shredding slowly
behing this
speeding
machine. 



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Kate McDowell
Children's Librarian
The Urbana Free Library
Urbana, IL
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