Mama always told me
I lacked a good amount of this thing
called “common sense.”
I’d believe every vendor on market day,
buy every apple they claimed was as sweet as molasses,
only to be so sour
I’d have to close my eyes when I took a bite.
I’d fall for pranks,
(when my brother said the president wanted me on the phone)
(well, I did win the spelling bee that day)
(maybe he wanted to congratulate me?)
easy tricks, and faulty trades.

Gullible, naïve, stupid,
that’s what the world has christened me,
a girl living in a small town in Mississippi
but might as well live in fairyland, as they put it.
Maybe I can’t argue – whenever I bargained,
I lost much, much more,
than I’d ever gained.
Mama’s different – shrewd, calculating eyes,
squinting at market prices, mouth moistening to haggle.
“Nothing’s ever free, Dolly, and the sooner you know that,
the better.” Her motto.
Anyone who made a friendly suggestion,
she’d scoff, saying they were advertisers.
Anyone who looked a little “shady” around the brows,
she’d avoid.
She looked at the world with distrusting eyes
and had a penchant for cynicism disguised in being “realistic.”

I never told Mama this
but I like to believe.
I like to believe in things,
I like to believe in people.
I like to think that vendor really thought that apple
was the goddamn best thing that could ever happen.
I like to think maybe one day ole Pres of the US
could have the time
to call a nobody like me.
I don’t know when, or how, but
everyone stopped
believing.

Maybe I really am stupid.
It’s probably true, but
still, I’ll tell you this:
I don’t know what I’ll gain or what profit I’ll make,
but believing in things feels a whole lot better
than living in a world where
misgivings, doubt, suspicion, all these shaky, hesitant, breakable things,
are the norm.