The Cast Flag Bracket on the Porch Post

The cast flag bracket is screwed to the porch post at the height a reaching hand can manage without standing on the step. It is a single casting of iron, an eagle whose spread wings end in a short trough that holds a flagpole. The trough tilts up at the front, so the flag leans out over the stairs. A wing nut underneath tightens down on the pole.

Most months the bracket does nothing. It sits against the post, its head turned toward the door, one wing casting a shadow on the boards. In July, the long month of the flag, the bracket has work. A pole is brought out, the flag is shaken open and fixed to it, and the pole is lifted into the trough. The wing nut is turned until the pole holds. The cast iron is warm to the hand by mid-morning.

The eagle is painted the same white as the post, but the paint is not the same thickness everywhere. The paint has been put on over earlier paint, and it has collected in the lines of the casting, so the feathers and the folded wings read clear. The casting seam shows as a faint line along the eagle's back and under the trough; the paint has filled it in most places, but it shows again where the paint has cracked. On the underside of the trough, where a brush could not reach well, the iron is bare and rough, a dull blue-gray. The lower lip of the socket has lost its paint too. The metal there is smooth and dark, and the trough has a worn spot on its left side where the pole sets in the way a hand settles into a worn glove.

The bracket is set square to the post, with the trough canted so the pole rests against the inside face of the socket. The angle of the pole is worn into the left side of the trough. Two brass screws hold the whole thing to the post. They pass through the eagle's body just below the wings, and the paint around them is cut in neat circles. The lower screw has one bright edge, a spot of rubbed metal at the point of the cut. The screw heads sit flush with the casting.

The person who takes the flag down at the end of the month does not look at the bracket. The fingers know the wing nut by its one bent fin, know how far it must turn before it grips the pole. The pole has to be angled past the rail to clear it, and the worn side of the trough gives it the room; the pole comes out, the flag is folded, and the trough is empty. Then the bracket is just iron on a post, an eagle with open wings and a socket under them, waiting out the year until July.