In Common Pond

When a name, a proper noun,
A proper name, a brand name,
Splashes into a puddle

Of little words, common words,
It has a startling effect—
Either you know it and then

That word lake’s electrified
By that one name—or you don’t,
And it sits there like a stone,

Or a sunken vehicle
Someone drove into the pond,
Short-circuited in the depths,

Something indigestible
In the waves of plain phrases,
Obdurate and alien

As a term from an unknown
Language in a puzzling script
No one has deciphered yet.

Maybe you’ve noticed these words
List no such marketable
Labels nor historical

Personages throwing sparks
Or sunk sulking in the reeds.
A lack of particulars

Alone is an abstraction.
Can you imagine living
Your life without proper nouns,

Without unique, exact names—
No brands, no divinities,
No celebrities, no kin—

Life with nouns for everything
But none for any one thing?
Well, that’s us, then, isn’t it?