New patriot love

on a red-letter day

in their nation of the bedroom

she and he fuck out a new flag

a Rorschach candy-cane splash

of semen and menses

hot with the swing beat of empire

with the gasp that sinewaves her French curve throat

with the groan that urges his Saxon lust

their bare monogamy prints this

new flag staining their woven skins

like a compass aches for north and heavy weather

no “owl kill in snow” this Unifolié frail and free

this flag homeless as the nativity

this flag identical with the fast

failing microstate it flies for

in the hinterland of their unboxed unsprung bed

in the unimagined community of their rented room

she and he stand and kneel and sway and slip

and on the wall amnesiac poppies stare black-eyed

at the poppies tattooing the field

of her narcotic back

as she glances

pushes back his plunging front

like mortar melting in foxhole

they forget themselves

they forget the forgetting that all flags demand

as the flag blurs and dries and prints the linens

as with glowing hearts they seethe rise

charge into each other

on guard for only each other

and so for all