Taps, Elementary School
That flag meant business.
It would flap like an eagle.
It would freeze into metal
strangle the pole.
Five, ten, twenty times my height
and climbing.
I didn’t know whether the pole was a nail or a screw.
I didn’t know whether the rope was hoisted by big or little men.
And I didn’t know whether the flag was dying
or being born.
Copyright 2023 by Marion Cohen
This is a very early poem, written decades ago, at the very beginning of Marion Cohen’s “poet career”. It’s meant to describe the Proutian feeling that she had one afternoon, towards the very beginning of her life. Since writing that poem, she’s published 33 collections; the 33rd one is Disturbing Shapes, which has just been released from New Plains Press. She’s known for her “math poetry”, which sometimes has actual math in it and sometimes doesn’t, but is always for everyone, not only mathematicians. She lives, writes, maths, Scrabbles, Wordles, classical pianos, mothers, grandmothers, and thrift-shops in Philadelphia, PA.
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
