Affirmative Action Babies
        for JB

Well, isn't this the world
you wanted, where the red-tiled
roofs and stucco don't remind
anyone of the conqueror,
and the wealthy are so far
removed even from the story
of money that theirs becomes
a politics shaped of pity,
or better, a dark geography
of need, where the body stands
transmutable as a mollusk
or weathering the redbay ambrosia
beetle's assault on a conifer.
Of course, our parents say,
we're living our own reward,
as if earning is earning
and our education, a handstamp,
an entry onto this bright island.

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Copyright © 2014 Amaud Jamaul Johnson All rights reserved
from the Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission