The Sad Truth

Handsome looks and riches
don’t matter
without adequate manhood.
       - Shonda Farish

Mrs. Farish is a native of New Orleans but moved away in 2005 due to the flooding caused by the levee system failures. She has been composing poems and Dixieland-style songs from spam since 1987 but refuses to write anything new until she is allowed to return home. “The Sad Truth” was one of her last poems and was written while riding on a bus carrying members of her church parish away from New Orleans during the evacuation.