This poem costs $40,000,
     which is the price of
     a Master of Fine Arts degree
     at a private American college
     at the end of the 20th century.
         
It comes to you
courtesy of Bank of America,
     now owned by NationsBanc
     and is financed at 8 1/2 % interest
     annually.
         
This poem is out to save the world
     one word at a time
     imbue lives with beauty and meaning --
and let's face it, these things are in
     short supply -- $40,000 is
     a small price to pay
         
until you realize that $40,000 could feed
      10,025 people Happy Meals for dinner
      or buy 160,000 condoms or 2,000 blankets
      or buy 400 morning-after pills for women
      who do not have access to or cannot
      afford abortion
         
or maybe this poem could be the salary
     of one or two staff members
      at the suicide hotline
      so that when a poet
      who is $40,000 in debt
      calls from a pay phone
     there is someone to pick up the call
         
at ten cents a minute long distance rates,
      that's 400,000 minutes
during which this poem could be read 133,333 times
     and at today's minimum wage,
      it would still not have paid for itself before taxes
         
and reading
      and reading any
                and reading any poem 133,333 times
                        could make anyone crazy
         
at which point
this poem
     courtesy of Bank of America
     now owned by NationsBanc
will remind you
that there traditionally have been institutions
     for people who write poetry --
      places with similarly manicured grass
      and lovely, lazy fountains
and these places are not schools.
     $40,000 seems a small price
     to pay to stay out of one.
         
but while there is health insurance
     and life insurance and accident
      insurance and disability insurance
there is no education insurance to help us understand why
         
we need
     that moment when words glimmer us
      with epiphanies and suddenly we
     are surrounded by fireflies making
     love on a dark night
      we are the curl and hush
     of the mona lisa's
      smile we are the immaculate
     fingers of light reaching
     through stained glass
         
how do you put a price on any of it
and how do you stop your hands from shaking
     when you write a check
     which is not a poem
      to the Bank of America
     now owned by
     NationsBanc.