by Sarah Duncan
I told you I wanted to know
what our flag is and you said it was
all hero, a kind of soft night
light in the hallway
so you can make it
to the bathroom without falling,
you said it was a quilt, wrapped
around mountains and snow drifts,
sleeving the arms of trees,
like purple, like mountain, like majesty,
you said it’s a taut man
in green with a barrel in his
hands the shape of freedom,
you said it’s our name, child,
your hands, your feet, and you
told me to touch it
so I gathered in my fingers
a piece of cloth, red-wet,
blood-dry, heavy with the sound
of last words from brown mouths
Created: July, 2016
Age: 29
State: Wyoming
Sarah Duncan currently lives in Laramie, Wyoming, where she's getting her MFA in creative writing. She is a queer multidisciplinary writer, performer, educator, troublemaker, and local community organizer as well as a member of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) Wyoming. Her poetry has been published by Pelorus Press, Ghost House Review, nin poetry Journal, Souvenir Lit Journal, and Us for President; her plays have been produced by Sanguine Theatre Company in NYC.