Somehow, he had gotten the idea
That he was using his own brain
To do his own processing
Of the things he would discuss.
It appears likely now that
Someone must have told him that.
As it happened, his idea of conversation
Was not properly his idea at all,
But was merely his attempt to say things
Like unto which he had always heard,
As if, it being his turn to recite the Pledge,
All its ideas were the work of his own mind.
He had been taught to expect plug-and-play
Answers to all of life’s puzzles,
And not to design his own from scratch.
And if you were to present a puzzle to him,
He would conflate the process of searching his memory
For an answer that seemed respectably conventional
With that of thinking it through for himself.
