Is it True?

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 Is it True? 


Every year an undercooked batch

of sophomores, every year the same 

stale questions hurled like boulders 

at the little dingy floating round

the whiteboard: was Odysseus 

real? Okay but did Beowulf 

really? Yeah but how do we know? 


It’s the facts they’re after,

those little pebbles they like to fill 

their pockets with to make sure 

they don’t float away

between bells, and hell 


I guess it makes sense

because they haven’t 

been to many weddings yet, 

watched the fact of two smiling stories

come crashing together to form

not just a third but the title character

of every one to come, haven’t yet seen 

how at a wedding, even though

really no one cares for dates 

unless you’re stopped up 

and eat them as a kind of medicine,  

they can become a small part 

of something wondrous delivered

on a silver platter by a guy 

dressed in white. What’s that? 


Sure, truth is fact, 

but bacon-wrapped. 

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