The Moral of the Mango (aka MaoFever) - Adam Jon Miller

after the old propaganda posters

THIS TIME his smiling face is shining out lines 
of yellow sun over a red flag & his words  
are bright yellow tongues. This time instead of gazing 
west, he faces forward, his face is plump
& healthy as an apple, his cheeks all shiny. Below 
the words sits a pile of mangoes. Some say Mao 
did not like the taste of mangoes. & instead of eating 
them himself, he sent them off to his red revolutionary 
guards, who in turn became obsessed with the gift
& desired to preserve the mangoes from natural decay.
Henceforth, some guards placed the mangoes into 
small glass boxes inscribed with an image of Mao.
This time rays of mango-colored sunshine shot out
Mao’s head across a glass sky. It is said other guards, they 

placed their mangoes into a jar of formaldehyde & prayed 
to Mao like a God that it would last for a full eternity. It 
unfortunately turned black & rotted, as would any other 
real fruit. The wisest revolutionary, however, placed a single 
mango into a huge tank of water & granted all the town 
factory employees the priveledge of drinking a small  
quarter-cup as if it were from a sacred spring, so they literally 
could fill their aching bodies with the essence 
of Mao.This caused the factory workers to work  twice as hard
for fourteen days, fourteen nights, not a single break!