A thought experiment was posed to me recently:
what if I had been named Don
instead of Jon?
I suppose any name would do
to call into question my life choices
but Donald in particular
holds a certain weight.

There are certain names in history
after certain dates
that had gained or lost
a certain sort of luster.
Were I a Donald in the eighties,
would I have then
felt closer to the president?
Would I now?

Who would Don Berger be
other than a man with a different monogram?
Would he write?
Would he be righteous?
Right-wing?
Would he wear wing-tips?
Would the same words fly off the tip of his tongue
as mine?
Would he be quite so fond of the third person as me?
I have no answers, obviously.

I think
I would be interested in seeing this Don
but from a distance
as I sort of suspect
he’d be kind of a schmuck.
It takes very little
to spoil a Berger.
I should know
and I believe
a name change
would be all it would take
to spoil an otherwise excellent recipe.