There was a joke I learned to play, a joke

my friends used to play while we were walking,

wandering around our hometown, in which

the trailing person in the group would smack a stop sign

or other metal street sign as hard as they could

with a raised hand and yell Ow—!

When the others turned around to look,

you, the joker, were supposed to be doubled over

with your head in your hands, as if you’d hit

your head on the sign (as if you were possibly that tall).

I wasn’t clear exactly who or what the joke was on,

but I, too, executed it whenever I was the straggler,

partly so I could re-establish myself

as a speaking character in the group, but mostly

because I could never shake the feeling of shame

from when I’d first fallen for this gag, their laughter

aimed at the earnest expression of worry on my face.

I knew there was something terrible about this joke,

and that it belonged to a whole family of jokes

that “my generation” seemed to be swimming in,

whose lesson was about skepticism as a position

of safety, and knee-jerk empathy as (somehow,

I couldn’t see why) deeply embarrassing.

You weren’t supposed to be too credulous, I was learning,

people could pull one over on you, manipulate

your concern for them into a power

they held over you. How terrible, to learn that.

Poison, it was, I see now, that first evidence

that even one person’s suffering might

be merely simulated, and that you

might be a fool for believing.