YEN AND GREENBACKS

Ever since Japan
put Natsume Soseki
on the thousand-yen bill
many Americans have dreamed
of the Walt Whitman dollar
the Edgar Allan Poe five-spot
the Herman Melville sawbuck
the Jack Kerouac twenty
the Emily Dickenson fifty
the Mark Twain C-note
or at least
the Thoreau thousand
but all we get are generals
and presidents
monolithic buildings
on the flip side.
Of course Japan
has had 2000 years
to put its writers on the money
America just got here
so for centuries yet
we'll have to be content
to spend politicians
and military men
until they're all gone
when we can begin at last
to transact Walt and the others
whose words are worth more
than all the money ever printed.