Felix Fojas
Originally published in The Evergreen Review Issue 105 in 2002.
(for Sharon Esther Lampert)
In kindergarten our elders
Teach us to memorize by heart
Each sugarcoated letter
In the ABC of lies
Because the aspirin of fact
Is a tough act to swallow.
Then we slowly learn
To shape letters into
Plain words of untruth.
Afterwards, we graduate
To the art of stringing
Beads of pearly words
Into lustrous sentences,
A necklace of deception.
Finally we ourselves become
Masters of prevarication
And fabricate sentences
Into flawless paragraphs
Of falsehood which we print
Into a hardbound handbook
Of light and circulate
To the coming generation
While the primer of truth
Gathers dust and cobwebs
In some dark, stuffy corner
Of the inarticulate.
