- R.M. Haines
Poem After May Day
Updated: May 6, 2020
I would prefer
America not be
my name but it is
my name & they
say it in the poem’s
marketplace naming
its stakeholders &
executives even its
eventual dead it is
our name for this
lithium ion battery
this software &
pharmaceutical logo
it is the name of
this lab & classroom
this tower where
I make my cameos
as a face discovered
in a poem’s country
& this afternoon I
walked in the poem
across the pavement
to the dumpster (tiny
cameras all around
me) with black bag
of trash I stared down
into the bin's cosmos
of accidents like a lan
guage tearing thru
with new syntax for
the boxes & other bags
a ruined chair old
Nikes etc. & no
one was out all cars
parked doors shut
the air smelling like
dogwood whatever
this flowering is
the cedar chips
the traces of masked
mail carriers on steps
& I thought I saw
Mercury or Venus
glowing with delay
& I was afraid
all this was paid
for & soon to be
nothing more than
another poem’s
currency a scattered
coin lost inside America
where the names are not
the names the images
are trapped & nothing
not even the poem
lets you go