America, you don’t need us anymore
so we’re going on vacation.

You’ve got religion to whisper in your ear
and sing you to sleep at night,
and culture of homogeneity to get you up
and going on cold Monday mornings, coffee in hand.
You’ve got plastic prophesies to keep you alive
and sick on medicines from unrhyming
peddlers of purpose.
You’ve got assumptions and science to teach the kids now
so long as the chemists abandon their really significant digits!
You’ve got calculus problems and practical things to scribble
on the back of the wornout canvasses of Monet and the recycled
papyrus of Parmenides—nothing’s changed.

You don’t need metaphorical ice cream.
You don’t need symbolism of green ideas.
You don’t need moonlight anymore.
You don’t need breezes on summer afternoons
unless they’re part of a lemonade ad.
You don’t need stars.
You don’t need hope or purpose or prosperity
that can come from the meaningless lines
of poems.
You don’t need us anymore, so we’re leaving.
That’s it.
We’re done.
Goodbye, America. It’s been
fun.