by Arlene Weiner
 |
“Tariff,” Donald Trump has said many times, “is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” —The Guardian |
Tariff?
More beautiful than cerulean?
Than mother? Than home?
Something Arabian
about tariff: a perfume.
Something elaborate: a fringe.
Certainly more beautiful
than beautiful, bee-yoo-tiffle.
Related to giraffe? To sheriff?
A herd of tariffs, say, gathers
high-hanging fruit. A tariff
with a posse protects.
And yes, Arabian: Wikipedia:
The English term tariff
derives from the French: tarif…
a descendant of the Italian: tariffa,
from Medieval Latin: tariffe…
from the Ottoman Turkish…
borrowed from the Persian…
The Persian term derives from Arabic:
تعريف, ta rif.
To riff on tariff: What if
the English, the French, the Italians,
the Turks, the Persians
had taxed foreign tongues,
policed the borders of language,
put up walls?
We’d have no tariff, no beautiful tariff.
More beautiful than cerulean?
Than mother? Than home?
Something Arabian
about tariff: a perfume.
Something elaborate: a fringe.
Certainly more beautiful
than beautiful, bee-yoo-tiffle.
Related to giraffe? To sheriff?
A herd of tariffs, say, gathers
high-hanging fruit. A tariff
with a posse protects.
And yes, Arabian: Wikipedia:
The English term tariff
derives from the French: tarif…
a descendant of the Italian: tariffa,
from Medieval Latin: tariffe…
from the Ottoman Turkish…
borrowed from the Persian…
The Persian term derives from Arabic:
تعريف, ta rif.
To riff on tariff: What if
the English, the French, the Italians,
the Turks, the Persians
had taxed foreign tongues,
policed the borders of language,
put up walls?
We’d have no tariff, no beautiful tariff.
Arlene Weiner lives in Pittsburgh. She has been a copy editor, a den mother, a Shakespeare scholar, and a member of a group developing computer-based instruction. Her poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. Ragged Sky Press has published three collections of her poetry: Escape Velocity, City Bird, and More. She also writes plays.
