my flag

 

my flag

 

            is a beachtowel

heavy with sand

            whole tribes tangled in it

 

involuntary sky –

                        heart’s refuge

            in the true of dark

mind’s refuge in the heart

           

                        the flag

            must be all things to all

– a mirror aloft, reflection unfurling

that should make everyone happy

 

in a room with the queen

you’d see the queen

and she’d see you, her subject

– one among the many flags

 

in the bush would be magpies to fly in and tangle

– catch them like that when they get territorial

 

on the front of the big boss’s car

–  more of chrome

dark tarmac

 

in the night you’d choose the stars

– bright pinpricks from another sky

in which

the true flag must fly,  be windblown, limp

from the accustomed pole –

a square cut of heaven and no strings attached

 

poem published in The Age, mid-nineties sometime