Richard Taylor
Franklin County
Artist Statement: The poem is an attempt to say that democracy is dormant and that it needs resuscitating through some healthy exercise, especially voting.
The essentials are embedded in the fabric of the constitution and our history. Time to wake up and revitalize it.
Rooting through a box of old clothes,
deprived of light and breath for years
and sized to fit a previous self,
I found an old white handkerchief—
threadbare, stained, pitted by moths,
though the fading linen is still creased
in a symmetry that honors the iron.
It’s a handkerchief, not a flag,
but the cloth remembers its folds.
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Resident of Franklin County, teaches creative writing and English at Transylvania University,
Co-owner of Poor Richard's Books, former Kentucky poet laureate.