In the candlelight you asked: what is Truth?
I said: search me, and so did jesting Pilate,
Who, eyeing the bill, didn’t stay for the answer.
About this dinner we shared, the question, I am certain,
Is what’s bought, or, of earnestness, the matter
Of who will pay, that, of all the substance, who will tell?

Consider the performance of the dogs, the tell-
Tale of bandy legs, the whimper from the truth
Of canned meat. To a dog, what’s et is the real matter.
But you sit back and do your Pilates.
Let hoopy circles of leg stretches be the certain
Informed shield keeping you leanly from the answer,

Hide in that banality you look for. Such an answer
Might come too close. Panting, you can hardly tell,
Can hardly part the restaurant’s fish-patterned curtain
Showing the fish-eating-fish dance of the truth.
So as I coast down the steps, Pontius is my pilot,
Putting a purple robe to the whole dark matter

Of what’s hidden, unseen, or credible matter.
What scientists make of the hidden is an answer,
Or just the fish garnish to the universe’s plate
Of astronomical circumlocuted kiss and tell.
The main course on the menu of truth
Is the starry serving stone of certainty

Or some humongoloid error of circumference, a certain
Earth weary yearning that makes the Bible matter.
I’m sure there’s something so façade-d,—tell the truth:
Deep in the orchard there might not be a real answer—
The substance, big stomach grumblings, might only tell
Who’s holding the stick, thwacking at cows, who’s the pilot

Steering the heard now, which wheel-mind pilots
Us through the slimy creek rocks, or on through certain
Disruptions, who breaks the holy dinner roll? It’s hard to tell.
The hoary wagging finger’s fact of the matter
Is we have to make up a sweet layer of answer,
See the only lie is an unhungry I-love-you truth

Like Pilate’s turn of the head answer to the matter.
You’n’me, we’re certain that the answer comes as it goes,
Not handing out the real bank numbers for the truth.