a poem
Beyond the window where I sit
three banners fly
the illustrious red white and blue
lit from behind by the evening sun
the tasteful green and gold
of our beloved University
and the sky-colored rectangle of South Dakota
that some idiot thought would be recognizable because
everyone can see a smelting furnace and
a man plowing with draft horses and
a herd of cattle and
a field of corn and
a river and
a steamboat and
trees and
mountains and
the state motto in sixteen-point font and
the date, 1889, from
two hundred feet away.
The wind stretches it taut, as if nailed to a wall,
steps back, stares at the design for a few minutes
marveling
and when the concept is grasped,
gives the poor standard a shake and
wraps it around the pole,
pelts it with a few dry leaves,
then blows it straight up like a trumpeting elephant
as if to say you’re absurd
but not the way a bully would say it, of course,
and leaves the flag flagging
abused for the choices of its ancestors
like me
when my classmates request that I share my last name and
then laugh to themselves
for five minutes because
“I didn’t ask for your pronouns.”
Ellen Sheehy 