W
One night we started lying and couldn’t stop.
It was during the president’s speech.
The few who watched and the many who didn’t lost
control. Adolescents
expressed a sudden interest in their parents
and even themselves. School was
fine, in detail, life worthwhile.
The grownups, who had phoned
in to blow off
their second jobs with some lie, lied.
Those having affairs
admitted to others, those who weren’t
elaborated baroque perversions.
Through operatic tears shone a waxen smile.
Never so many lottery winners, promotions,
protestations of love or a will to reform.
As always when the unimaginative
imagine, myth prevailed: apparitions, abductions.
We became television.
It isn’t a great metaphor but I said it was.
The president went on talking.
He seemed unaffected.
It’s doubtful if the effect stopped when he did.
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