The Last Fact

This poem is from my second collection, The Museum of Unwearable Shoes. I thought I’d share it today in honor of Mark Zuckerberg, who just announced that Meta is doing away with fact checking. Apparently facts are no longer important in these heady days of shifting reality, and we remember how his empire all started with an app to rate hot girls back in college.

Dedicated to Mark Zuckerberg

You might think it one of those folks
like earth is round or the sky is blue,
but those two died years ago
in a rest home where old facts go
to die in peace.
Everyone knows earth is flat
and the sky any color you want.
Like his parents—death and old age—
he was stubborn till the end,
hiding out in dark taverns of falsehood and innuendo,
drinking absinthe to forget,
but forget he could not, no more than
a forge can forget what it fires,
or a sieve forget what it filters.
Reality police caught up one day
and brought him in for questioning.
They beat the truth out of him till
there was nothing left but skin and bones
and a shiny red stain,
as the sun sank in the east
and the stars shone from the heavens
like distant campfires.