Some people keep artificial plants, others artificial hearts.
Some keep nothing. It does not matter. The truth of the world
has nothing to do with the real. Every day the orange-
yellow-red ball rotates around the earth.
People believed this. Also that you could
fall off the edge of the earth. Also sex with a virgin
cures both the French pox & the Portuguese disease.
Bloodletting outs the poison. Put the scalpel
to the arm, position the special bowl beneath
the wound, catch the red liquid. You could avoid the
the plague by masking your face—the stronger the mask,
the stranger. Is something false just because
it is not true? Of all fakes, ornamental pear is the loveliest;
the blossoms are pure pink, and they smell like rue.