Fence Line Flutter

The highway slow-burn,

hot asphalt breath.

And there,

a gas station, tired and worn.

A chain-link fence,

and something snagged,

a flag of plastic grief.

Not pretty. Not a sail,

not some airy, fleeting thing.

Just a thin, stretched membrane,

a faint blue ghost of a logo,

some discount store,

distorted by the pull

of wind, then still.

It slapped the metal post,

a flat, dull sound.

A kind of mockery

of freedom, this

half-life, caught

between nothing and less.

The light hit it wrong,

made it gleam,

briefly,

like a lie.

The exhaust fumes climbed.

And still, it hung,

a tattered,

useless lung.