never thought I
would see it here
in this Otherwhere,
no plantation in sight
no patterned pods
for the picking,
nor calloused hands
to plow & gin
an untouched December
bluff surrounded by scrubs of green
blowing along
a dust-whipped road heading south
toward no one’s harvest.
Copyright © 2023 by Fred L. Joiner. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 19, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.