A LOVING WORLD
by Tariq Thompson
after Jeffrey McDaniel
There is a dumb peach tree in some ravished country
that still bears peaches. The world’s people, mostly
poor & naked, lie on prickled beaches begging for
the tide’s touch, each day broken by its leaving.
(I have no ocean. I am land-locked & my mother is dying.)
Beneath the southern sun, beneath my own fear,
I daydream a loving world. Each morning I float
in the cool of my lover’s pool. I am a romantic teacher
gardening petunias with padded knees. Each evening
I love so brutally wild meadows replace the sites
of lynchings, so truthfully white men blush violently.
My calendar is a string of smiles.
My mother is still alive for a while.
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