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Civics, Fourth Period
David Anson Lee
We stand for the anthem
like a habit inherited rather than chosen.
The flag is explained again
by someone who has never held it in wind.
A student asks if freedom
is a grade or a feeling.
The teacher pauses
as if the answer is stored in the ceiling tiles
and requires permission to fall.
Outside, the custodian sweeps up paper stars.
David Anson Lee is a retired physician, professor, and poet whose recent work turns toward short-form poetry exploring perception, memory, and American civic life. His writing often draws on medical spaces, classrooms, and everyday public rituals to examine how people see and misread one another. He lives in Texas and writes across the intersections of medicine, identity, and national narrative. https://davidalee.substack.com/