Patriotism

Yesterday I saw a man outside the Publix supermarket waving an American flag. Not something you see a lot unless it's the Fourth of July. He had a box of "car flags" that he was selling.
Seeing it reminded me of the period of time right after September 11, 2001, when everyone, it seemed, had American flags on their cars. Sometimes there would be two or more.
One day I found one of those flags in the street. It had fallen off the car and gotten run over countless times. But you could still read on the edge of the flag, "MADE IN CHINA."

The Commuters

Every day,
Around the same time of day,
Twice a day,
I hear them.
They come streaming down the street in their Subaru,
Their Doppler voices trailing behind them.
Dogs.
Barking dogs.
Two or three of them, heads hanging out the windows, barking.
I can almost set my watch by them.

Image from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_effect