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      June 17, 2016May DayBilly Collins

      That was the day we made love
      in a room without a bed,
      a room of tall windows and a rose ceiling,
      and then we moved outside
      and sat there on a high deck
      watching the pelicans dive into the waves
      as we drank chilled white wine,
      and after a little while
      I put a finger in your hair and twirled it,
      and you smiled and kept looking at the sea.
      It must have been almost seven
      when I found the car keys and kissed you
      because you said you would make us
      a really interesting dinner
      if I picked up some things at the market.
      And the blue sky was still illuminated
      as I walked across the parking lot
      and through the electric doors,
      for the days of the year
      were now increasing by the minute,
      and I will not soon forget how,
      after I had filled the basket
      with two brook trout,
      asparagus, lemons, and parsley,
      rum-raisin ice cream, and a watermelon,
      the check-out girl—
      no more than a junior in high school—
      handed me the change
      and told me I should have a nice day.

      from #51 - Spring 2016

      Billy Collins

      “‘May Day’ is one of many poems of mine that was inspired by an irritant, in this case, those persistent and empty words we hear on leaving a store: yes, I mean ‘Have a nice day.’ But here, rather than being annoyed, the speaker is struck by the irony that the happy-face wish was delivered during the progress of the kind of ‘nice’ day the cashier is probably too young to even imagine.”