Fooled You

Children in middle school

In northeast New Jersey,

In sight of Manhattan,

Just after the middle

Of the last century,

Spoke English or Spanish,

Most of them, and shouted

Locally learned taunts carved

From American slangs

Within recent years or,

At most, recent decades.

Whenever anyone

Triumphantly suckered

Someone into thinking

Something fact that wasn’t,

Some feeling genuine

That had been wholly faked,

Or some high-five coming

That then got yanked away,

The go-to cry of glee

And easy mockery

Was always, Psych! As in,

Sucker, I psyched you out.

You’ve been played. You’ve been punked,

And I did it. I win.

Thus the ancient Greek soul

Kept on transmigrating.