pledge no longer

after watching films like “The Killing Fields,”

“Apocalypse Now,” “Full Metal Jacket” &

beginning to think long and hard about what

his country had really been doing in Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos,

this high school senior refuses in early morning

home room

to stand up & say

The Pledge of Allegiance

to the flag hanging from the corner of the wall,

where all his classmates, holding their hands over their hearts

mutter along the words that they have repeated

day in & day out,

since they can remember---

his homeroom teacher takes him aside when the rest sit down &

he is told that he needs to say the pledge just like the rest of the kids,

but he sits there staring up at the teacher with

fierce eyes that the teacher sees other classmates already being inspired by at that very moment,

and he utters simply,

“i’m not pledging any longer.”