THE PEELING OF AMERICAN FLAG BLUE

by Celeste DeSario

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

“Multiple arrests,” Truth Social shrieks!
“People vandalizing the Reflecting Pool”
“Eco-Terrorists!”
 
David Hearn, the “eco-terrorist”
Aka former Olympic canoe racer
Stopping by the pool during a 64-mile bike ride.
Curious as to what is going on,
(These days we have to see for ourselves—
So much spin, so many lies.)
 
Curious, a regular citizen,
Reaching into pool to examine the peeling coating,
briefly touching a chunk on the side of the pool,
Letting go the moment a park worker tells him to.
Detained by National Guard troops for 5 hours before being released.
Because that’s what we have become:
fodder for an old man’s lies.
 
There. That takes care of all those doubting Dumb-a-Crats
Who keep asking why I spent $14-million- plus
Just to spruce up the green, algae -laden pool
For the nation’s 250th anniversary.
 
Backfired? Mistake?
Never admit to a mistake.
It’s Biden’s fault. It’s Obama’s fault.
 
American flag blue will cover up the Iran war, 

Why did we attack them again?
The Epstein files, 

Did you finish redacting any mention of my name yet?
The dismantling of the East Wing,
The dismantling of our democracy.
 
Throw in chemicals!
Kill the algae while I find the time to attach blame.
Drain the swamp!
Deflect it.
Shroud it.
  
The American Flag Blue lining peeling away
Beginning to fail,
Exposing the filth on the bottom.
You can only cover that up for so long.
 
And, here’s my question:
What do YOU see when you stand by the edge of that reflecting pool
And look into the green globs of phytoplankton, bacteria, green scum?
 
The water is “crystal clear.”
Believe me.
Just look away.
 
You, throwing insults and bombs
Retreating to your gilded office
To type out words you hope the world
Will believe.

Celeste DeSario taught English at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, New York for 37 years and received teaching honors from both SUNY and the University of Texas. Now focusing on creative writing, her recent poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, The Changing Times, The SportScribe Literary Magazine, The Ekphrastic Challenge of June 6 of Wenzel Hablick’s Utopian Buildings and The Ekphrastic Review’s July 6th online issue.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE MOSQUE

by Devon Balwit

Kristin Collins with the letter her son Abraham Davis sent to the Masjid Al Salam Mosque (Fort Smith, Arkansas) in apology for his actions. Davis had driven his friend to the mosque on which the friend drew swastikas and curses while Davis stood watch in the driveway.—The New York Times Magazine, August 26, 2017

“I wake up and look in the mirror and I just think, ‘Who are you?’”
 —Abraham Davis quoted in "The Two Americans,” 
The New York Times Magazine, August 26, 2017

I don’t know why I did it, why I did most things.
I wanted to be bigger, harder to squash. I didn’t even

do the drawing, just drove my friends to where they
scrawled the broken-winged Swastikas. When the police

came, later, no one was surprised. In fact, we all exhaled,
the cell a hole my life had been funneled towards. When

I wrote the mosque to forgive me, I startled myself. I never
expected they would, instead, just wanted to answer

the ghosts crowding my nights. I wanted to show
who I wasn’t. They forgave me. Now comes learning

how to forgive myself. Every day, I look in the mirror,
and I think: Who are you? I look myself in the eyes.

Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.