Lunar Flag
Thomas Quitzau
March 4, 2021
b. 1969—
Attempts to hang me, beauteous lover,
Have succeeded: fifty-one brutal years.
After counting stars, I’m starting over
Slung like a scarecrow and left to die here.
It’s easier this way, alone, recluse
Planted in ashen rocks broken by slave
Meteors pulled into this vacant loose
Atmosphere like baked dirty cotton waves.
If that mirror-faced white pudgy farmer’s
Segregated cultivated good will
Don’t kill me, the blue minié ball charmer’s
Penetrant spinning vacillations will.
Red and blue have left my wrinkled white face
Cosmically decayed through pitch-black space.
Thomas Quitzau is a poet and teacher who grew up in the Gulf Coast region and who worked for over 30 years in Houston, Texas. A survivor of Hurricane Harvey, he recently wrote a book entitled Reality Showers, and currently teaches and lives on Long Island, New York with his wife and children.
