“He didn’t believe it, no sir” or, “I’m masking for a friend”

[Manhattan’s dismantled Sixth Avenue elevated tracks were bought as scrap metal by Imperial Japan three years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.]

plato told

him:he couldn’t
believe it(jesus

told him;he
wouldn’t believe
it)lao

tsze
certainly told
him,and general
(yes

mam)
sherman;
and even
(believe it
or

not)you
told him:i told
him;we told him
(he didn’t believe it,no

sir)it took
a nipponized bit of
the old sixth

avenue
el;in the top of his head:to tell
him

—e. e. cummings, 1944

Question: Why does it take a bullet in the head for us to see what has been right in front of our eyes the whole time?