A burning flag becomes a strange kind of landscape in this short piece. It opens with a haiku-like image of the flag hissing as it burns, then moves into a calm, almost scientific sentence about fire breaking apart the chemical chains in polyester. The "thousand fingers" give the flames a creepy, intimate quality, as though the destruction were careful rather than wild.
The speaker and others stand over what's left, a charred outline on the road, and see it as a map of disaster: a nuclear test site, a strip mine, the tar sands. The comparison suggests that the real damage lies elsewhere, in places ruined by human choices, and that the flag itself is made of the same synthetic stuff. The title, "Flag of Hate," hints at what the burning might mean to those watching.
The closing haiku calls the stars "fake" and says they are "learning what it means to shine." The tone is cool and observant, with a dark irony: only in burning do the stars finally glow.