By Richard Solomon

All the beauty and all the violence
I dream of juneberries, too.

Picked one by one in that little park
Cherry sours and muscadine pits
Children munching
Soft giggles in the cream yellow gaze of a dying sun.

At night I play basketball
I dream of muscadine men
D9s and F16s
Angels scything grapes of wrath
Mosquitoes and rebar
Raindrops and roses
Violets and tear gas.

I dream of Gaza and Mark 80s
Of chocolate
Of how he never knew a muscadine before they killed him
Of the golden rod in autumn
Of his corpse
Of how I never threw a brick.

All the beauty and all the violence
I dream of juneberries, too.