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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