PAPER FLAG

A paper flag is in the window, stars and stripes bleached by hot and cold winds and all the sunshine California brags about even on afternoons where smoke crowds the horizon and air burns your lungs as you breathe, The stars and bars are now a faint, rusted green, a nauseated tint of yellow erodes the edges of each straight line, What was once white is a crinkled brow, a worried grey, the blue we knew is cracked and lined with spiderwebbing and the dry shells of dead insects,

The tape holding the paper to the window sill is likewise cracked, baked onto the glass paned, affixed as long as the window remains unshattered but long after the rage that made many scream one syllable slogans and cry at cat videos and cartoons of angry eagles clutching lightning bolts and missals in its talons has receded like beach sand coming and going with tides that occur whether we pay attention or not,

This day is pleasant, the workman are somewhere else with their tar and jackhammers, but this window still bears the paper flag staring at the traffic and diminishing pedestrian density as the sun recedes and the shadows get longer while whatever was on our mind as a species scrolls off the list of many things we’ll get to think all the way through.