This Article Is about the Argentine Republic

We know more now, too much more.

In 1976

An eighth-grade thirteen-year old

In suburban New Jersey

Was assigned geography

Homework on Argentina

And did what kids did back then—

Go to the library or

Some encyclopedia,

Nearly out of date, someone

Years gone conned your folks into

Buying on a subscription.

Haul the volume containing

Argentina from the shelf.

Find the entry. Start reading

And copying out by hand

The sorts of information

Your homework has demanded.

You’ll get a couple pages

In your own bad penmanship

And earn another good grade.

You won’t expect to recall

Any of it. You don’t think

Perons will stick in the mind,

That you’ll feel an insider

Thrill when you see the first ads

For the Broadway musical

Evita, that you’ll pick up

Borges because the jacket

Bears the word, Argentina,

That you’ll feel slightly sickened

To find out, years and years late,

How Peronism ended,

How the junta came to power

And the Dirty War began,

That, even after decades,

You’ll perk up when a colleague

Turns out Argentinian,

That you’ll daydream of moving,

Rarely, but now and again,

Down to Argentina, that

You’ll feel some weird ownership

Because you wrote that homework,

Or that you’ll go the whole way

Round the Southern Hemisphere

To see the seasons reversed,

Watch Orion’s handstand, but

Not visit Argentina.

A child young enough to be

That ‘70s child’s grandchild

Checks with Wikipedia.