Pickup Poem Day 20

Two Smaller Blankets Stitched Into a Larger Blanket

Neatly folded in history's clearance

basket rest the breakaway flags, made

in haste. Bars, cartoons, calligraphs--

a field more sentimental than the blood

and votes for the effort. Pass or fail, birth

is violence. A few years' peace at best, before

the next potent question mark makes the next

cut, and then again, and at days end

we are nations ourselves, single-serving flags

passed out like Fruit Roll-Ups, one

to a hungry student. O raise instead

the rare banner of join, two peaceable

kingdoms in consent, nothing to fight about

besides who's the big spoon, who should answer

the cats' yowling hunger, who gets to hide

from the colder day a bit longer.