These Are the Facts (Perhaps)

these are the facts about the country
I was not born in minus the
sprinkling of anecdotes, the

vivid quotes, though,
sometimes they creep in
when the editors are asleep

and the Cinderellas come to sweep up.

these are the facts, the who, what,
where and when crammed into the
first paragraph in case the reader

doesn't quite make it to the end
and sometimes the how o now and then
but never the why, so why pretend.

so we could say, couldn't we, my erstwhile friend
this is the abc but not
the x, y, z,

of the country I didn't
grow up in, the one
where I never went to school

or was asked to dance
the one where the merry go round horses
would not, could not prance

though you used up all your dimes on
the grocery store carousel
trying to make it work.

still, all manner of things should go well
and what have you learned
despite you know, good spelling doesn't count anymore

of everything that went before:
the depth of the files
they ask you after each mistake

and after awhile, you almost smile and
just say: nothing I can't make up for
inside my own head, thank you,

instead, a,b...
being (then they'll say, superciliously)
not at all that well read.

mary angela douglas 13 august 2016