An Untrue Tale

Once upon a time, as so many say,
there was a literature professor, who,
with wavy eyebrows like caterpillars
beckoned his students to peer back
through the earthen piles of time, grinding
with their teeth and minds the histories,
mythologies, and narratives of old.
Together, they assembled in his small
plaster parish of deconstruction.
Is this real? Is this true?
They would ask him, sometimes gifted
a golden answer, sometimes wrapped
in half-truth. In fact, the kindly old teacher
had an arsenal of degrees in the art,
even science, of dissecting fiction.

They trampled over Johnny Appleseed
and sat upon the back of Atlas, rested at the feet
of the Lonely Mountain, while leaping
at the sound of Aslan’s roar. Now and then,
stopping to have a chat with Leopold Bloom,
Mrs. Dalloway, Grendel, Sherlock Holmes,
or flirting with Madame Bovary.

None of them true, the pedagogue
declared until one day, dismissing class,
he noticed the lone figure in the corner
of his familiar chapel – first, a real impression,
then floating away into translucence,
the sum of the many tales he had told,
a constellation of collected stories with two
arms, two legs, and, seemingly, a soul.

Tell them the truth wrapped up
in the lies, the mouthless whisper arrived,
then gathered back with the autumn
afternoon of a writer drafting her first page.

JD DeHart is the author of the collection, The Truth About Snails, available from Red Dashboard Press.

Find more by J. D. DeHart in the Author Index.

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