If Not, Not

Leave it to Stein
To have come up
With the gate no
One who codes would

Think filled a need.
Not if, then. Not
And, or. Not rise,
Time. “If not, not.”

There was no, It
Is what it is,
When she wrote this.
It was for Pound,

Whom she thus sketched,
And it’s as clear
As a clean, deep
Lake in the night.