Southern Pastoral

In the dream, I am with the Fugitive Poets. We're gathered for a photograph. Behind us, the skyline of Atlanta hidden by the photographer's backdrop— a lush pasture, green, full of soft-eyed cows lowing, a chant that sounds like no, no. Yes, I say to the glass of bourbon I'm offered. We're lining up now—Robert Penn Warren, his voice just audible above the drone of bulldozers, telling us where to stand. Say "Race" the photographer croons. I'm in blackface again when the flash freezes us. My father's white, I tell them, and rural. You don't hate the south, they ask. You don't hate it?