The Boys Who Used to Raise the Flag

The boys who get

To raise the flags

Are chosen

Based on complex criteria

That is a mishmash

Of grades

Behavior

And how well they play

On the school’s basketball team

One is the son

Of the school principal

And he’s the only one

Who fails to meet the criteria

But is allowed

To raise the flag each day

Because his father thinks

It will instill in him

A sense of cause and duty

Twenty years from the last day

Of fifth grade

The principal’s son

Will set fire to a flag

At a protest against an oil company

Attempting to demolish and drill

At a wildlife sanctuary

One of the boys

Is the star of the school basketball team

The Mad Frogs

Perhaps the meanest elementary

Basketball team

In the history of northern Connecticut

Ten years from the last day

Of fifth grade

This boy will be in his dorm room

And another boy will be leaving

With an American flag t-shirt

Sleeves cut off

And as he’s leaving

He’ll turn and smile

At the former star

Mad Frog

Basketball player

And the boy

Who used to raise the flag

Will fall in love

For the first time

With someone

Who can love him back

The third boy gets the best grades

In all of fifth grade

The teacher loves him

And every day he goes home

Not sure if the door will be

Unlocked or even wide open

Because his father

Had to run in quick

Grab some money

And run back out again

Sometimes whole weeks go by

And he eats by ordering pizza

With the cash his father leaves for him

In one of the assigned places

He knows that if the phone rings

And someone reads four numbers to him

He’s to go across the street

To Mrs. Lawrence’s house

And wait for further instructions

Thirty years from the last day

Of fifth grade

He’ll be visiting his father

At a facility

And his father will be humming

The national anthem

On a loop

And when his son asks him

To stop

His father will hum louder

Until the boy

Who used to raise the flag

Gets up and leaves

Deciding never

To visit

Again

Nowadays the flag is up

But only because

Nobody bothered

To take it down

When school emptied out

If it rains, it rains

If it’s dark, it’s dark

One of the boys

Who used to raise the flag

Drives by

For old times sake

Sees the flag

And decides

It needs to come down

He stops his car

But he can’t get out

What would it look like

If someone saw

The man he is now

In this nice residential area

With all these houses

Circulated on a hillside

Trying to take down a flag

That doesn’t belong to him?

Would he remember

How to fold it up properly?

Would he be able

To keep it

From touching

The ground?

Would he stand there

With it wrapped around him

Waiting for someone

To come

And ask him

What he’s doing?

He stares up at the flag

And wonders

If it’s the same flag

He used to raise

And lower

Every day

It doesn’t seem

So high anymore

But still high enough

To require

Attendance

Invisible Lines

I’m not sure who to let in his room

The thing is

I don’t want to be

Like Mark

Down the street

Because he’s an asshole

And his kids hate him

Because he goes around

With all these, uh, old-fashioned

Points of view

And he says shit like--

That boy better bring my daughter home

By 10pm or I’m going to be waiting

With a shotgun on the porch

Okay, well

Fuck you, Mark

Your kids hate you
And I hate you

Because your daughter

Isn’t livestock

You loser

Um, that being said…

I also don’t want to be

Like Brian

Who’s, uh, very lenient

Very, very lenient

And so his kids

Already have their, uh,

Who they’re dating

Living with them
And the whole thing

Is very commune-ish?

Not that I have

Anything against communes

But, um, I don’t want to have one

In my house

I think there’s a balance

Between, um, Mark

You know, the facist

And Brian, the, uh, you know,

The doormat

I think there’s a middle ground

Between the moronic

And the spineless

For me, I’m trying to navigate

The middle ground

By determining

Who can and cannot
Go in my son’s bedroom

We are a very welcoming house

We love everyone

We accept everyone

But just, as a point of privilege

As a parent

I do not want my fifteen-year-old

Having sex

And I think he’d have sex

If I let him stay up in his attic room

With the door closed

And I also just don’t feel like going up there

Constantly

To check on him and whoever’s with him

Because there are a lot of stairs

And I get winded

But

I don’t want to say he can’t ever

Have people up there

Because that seems excessive

So I just want to keep the people out

He could potentially have sex with

But

The problem is

It seems like

These days

He could have sex

With virtually anyone

And if you think

I am fixated

Way too much

On my child having sex

Then you sound like my husband

And you and he can go get a drink together

And talk about how progressive you are

With Brian and all his kids who have kids

And they alllllllllllll have kids

So what I do is

I talk to my son

And I tell him

That I support him loving

Or being interested in

Whoever he’s interested in

But

I need to know

Who that is exactly

Because those are the people

Who are not allowed to be in his room

Because while I understand

That you can be attracted to someone

And not have sex with them

I have to draw the line somewhere

And being a parent

Is all about drawing invisible lines

That nobody can see but you

Because it makes you feel better

And my son looks at me

And tells me

That he’s pan

I picture a pan

I’m not kidding

In my mind

I imagine my son

As a giant pan

And then I go ‘Huh?’

And then

He explains to me

What being pansexual means

And what it means is

Not limited in who he’s sexually attracted to

Which means, uh--

I’m fucked

But then my son tells me

That he’s also an introvert

So it’s unlikely that he’d want

To have anyone in his room anyway

And that also

He’s decided to become a vegan

Because he’s an empath

And that informed the decision

And that he’s only experimenting

With pansexuality

And that he might be asexual

In which case

I’d have nothing to worry about

And could let a thousand naked people

In his bedroom

Without needing to worry

And oh by the way, he’s Slytherin

At that point, I just decided

We shouldn’t talk as much

It’s fine

I didn’t talk to my mother

For most of my teenage years

And it was fun to catch up

When I turned twenty

Invisible lines, friends
Keep drawing

Those invisible lines

Perverts Up and Down the Street

Ever since it got hot out

Everybody in the neighborhood

Has their windows open

And I--

I should tell you

That usually I put the air on

I like the air

I don’t like fresh air

You know what fresh air has?

Bugs

Bugs and disease

Growing up, you put the air on

My mother would scream at you

Like you set the house on fire

You opened the windows

And let the fresh air in

You know what got in?

Bugs and disease

And heat

Notice they don’t call it ‘cool’ air

They call it ‘fresh’ air

Because nobody claims

It cools anything down

It’s just something your mother did

Because she didn’t want

To turn on the a/c

So I grow up

I get my own house

We have the central air

I’m excited

First summer comes around
I turn on the air

Everything is wonderful

This year

The air breaks

I see the bill to fix the air

I think ‘You know what?

Maybe my mother was onto something’

I open the windows

Now, I live in a nice neighborhood

With nice people

Or so I thought

Do you have any idea

The kind of things I’m hearing

Every day

With these windows open?

You got all these people home now

Because nobody works anymore

Or if they do

They work from home

Or they work at night
I don’t know

It’s none of my business

But it is the middle of the day

And I am hearing things

I do not need to be hearing

Perverts up and down the street

Now I love my neighbors

I’ve never met them

But I see them sometimes

When I’m out

Walking the cat

Because she gets anxious

And you would think

I was living in a skin flick

The way these people carry on

Now at night

Would I say anything?

No

You want to have some fun

After six pm

That’s up to you

That’s why no matter how hot it is
I close my windows

At night

And I sweat

And I cry

And I pass out

But I don’t want my neighbors

Hearing my husband yelling

While he’s watching old basketball games

From the eighties

They don’t need to hear that

But during the day

I keep my windows open

And I keep my family quiet

Because nobody wants to be

That house on the street

Where you know all their business

Because they leave their windows open
And then put on a show for everybody

Except now I’m the only quiet house

On the street

And everybody else

Is acting out Boogie Nights

As soon as the sun comes up

Can you tell me

What has gotten into people?

Did somebody sprinkle

Angel dust

All over everything

And I missed my dose?

It is unbearable

And it’s not even July yet

It’s got me yearning for fireworks

And I hate fireworks

The cat has a panic attack

If you so much as set off a sparkler

But this year

I’m putting a Xanax

In her tuna

And I’m saying ‘Let ‘em rip’

Because at least that kind of noise

Doesn’t have my fifteen-year-old

Giggling like a maniac everyday

It’s out of control

Strangely enough

I opened my windows the other night

Because I couldn’t take the humidity

And it was quiet as all get-out

You could hear a pin drop

Not a sound

In the neighborhood

Well, I guess after doing

What they were doing all day

They must have needed

A good night’s sleep