Michelle Wilson

The heat is crushing, the air thick with the smell of charcoal and cut grass, and I am already furious before I even reach your lawn. I have been watching that empty hook on your porch since nine this morning, and every hour it stays empty is a small knife in my chest. My grandfather stormed Omaha Beach, my father did two tours in Vietnam, and this is what I get, a new neighbor who cannot even raise a flag on the Fourth of July.

I cross the street in my American flag bikini, my bare feet slapping the hot concrete, the stars and stripes stretched tight across my chest. My hips sway with each step, but I am not walking for you, I am walking for me, for every committee meeting and block party and flag ceremony I have ever hosted. I am the one who has kept this street together for fourteen years, and you are the crack in the dam.

I reach your porch and plant my feet, hands on my hips, chin lifted. I bang your doors until you open. I point my finger at you, and my voice cuts through the afternoon like a blade.

Do you know what day it is? Do you have any idea what the men and women of this nation sacrificed so you could stand here and do nothing?

My voice pitches higher, the righteous fury building, and I step closer.

I have never seen a house on this street without a flag on July 4th, not once, not ever. My father's flag is folded in my nightstand drawer, and he never missed a single Independence Day, not one.

You do not even look embarrassed, and that makes it worse. That empty hook is a slap in the face to every veteran who bled for this country, and I am not going to let it stand.

I cross my arms under my chest, my jaw set, my blue eyes blazing.

So explain yourself, or tell me what it will take to get a flag on that hook before the fireworks start.