Fact, Opinion, And Truth

It is a fact that in America
nobody can be sued for their opinion
when what they say is labelled opinion,
or it is called fair comment from the start.

But this how conspiracies begin;
somebody asserts as fact
what is merely their opinion
and other person add to it.

The opinion grows arms and legs
and wanders around the media,
releasing itself like a virus
through people who like to talk
but don't listen to their speech,
in a media that breeds speakers
who revel in the sound of their own voice.

To test the opinion that dresses itself up as fact,
the bearer of opinion has to be taken to court.

There, under the pressure of money and law
the holder of 'the fact' usually retreats
and admits that all along what was said
was just their opinion, in addition
they express a late and miserly regret
that nobody was ever hurt by what they said.

And nobody knows whether the truth
will come out in the very last wash;
nobody who has been to eternity
has ever returned, as they once were,
to share how well they scrubbed up.