McDONALDS WITH LOVE

“Today I go to McDonalds & I speak to a machine. & After I speak to the machine, the food comes. That’s America.”

—Vanna Barba

I went to McDonald’s & ordered a Big Mac.
The clerk said that my number came up
that I was a randomly chosen customer
could pay for my lunch “with love”
I just had to say a poem, she said.
I recited my poem “Patriotism,”
it goes like this:

I looked at that girl
standing on the street corner
in tight red pants
a red, white & blue blouse
the blue field of stars across
her right breast, her left nipple
at attention beneath the red
& white stripes.
I looked at that girl on the street corner
that patriot in tight pants
and I think:
that’s the flag I want to fly
at the top of my pole.

The clerk stared at me. “That’s not
a poem,” she said, “it doesn’t rhyme
& that’s not patriotism. You’ll
have to pay for that Big Mac.”