History 101 filled in the blanks, simpled us
a true or false, cooked up an essay or two
passed us whole platefuls, made it palatable,
tasty even, even those embarrassing wars
and bombs cooked up just right, spiced up,
mellowed down, adjusted to explain away
the aftertaste of body counts, of stalemates,
of losses, of collective guilt, platefuls, all
we could eat buffets of presidents and their
victories, of inedibles made edible, of years
we never get back, of time warmed, micro-
waved, left over leftovers, like foodies, even
back then, we prized what was on our plate,
ate it all, never uncomfortably full of it all.