When it first happened, everything was
straightforward. The editors had it down
to four inches, and left the rest
to a new restaurant. On TV, a professor said
something axiomatic. There was a protest, or perhaps
there was only a group of six with illegible placards,
quickly broken up. Most people forgot it
the week after. Those who knew wrote cryptic notes
in the margins of old books. The bureaucrats
lost the files in a flash flood, whispered commonplaces 
in the ears of the inquisitive. A long silence, haunted
by the barest ghost of truth. At last, the historians held conferences
announcing their discovery. But soon they accused each other
of being revisionists. Others spoke of discourse,
praxis and collective memory. In the end they agreed
that perhaps it wasn't really all that significant.