Walt Whitman
chocolates at
the Walmart,
the commodity
of Art snacked
while reading
a recent edition
of Poetry sent
from Chicago
as a beard
sifts through
tomatoes
in memory
of Allen
Ginsberg
and the first
time Harriet
published
Ezra,
the imagist,
and lines
from Leaves
of Grass
are etched
on the walls
of the elevator
at the Lyric
in New York,
and a life size
doll greets
visitors
to the Walt
Whitman
Rest Stop
on the New
Jersey Turnpike.
In transit
from elevator
to highway
to fruits and
veg, searching
America
for Walt,
and Ezra
too, who
wrote his pact
to the old
woodcarver
saying: “let there
be commerce
between us.”
Now Allen
has gone
as well down
the long slide
leaving
Walmart and me
to record the sale
of chocolates,
Poetry still
here in 2012,
thanks to a grant
from Ruth Lilly
who inherited
her largesse
from the sale
of compounds,
medicines,
a man named Eli
who, like Merrill,
made money
so his son James
could write. But
that is another
American line
not yet for sale
in Walmart
or on the Turnpike.
