We Don’t Know

We wish we did, wish you did,
But worst of all, we can’t know
If you can’t. Wait. Or could we?
What if we hid it from you?
What if we know it right now,
Hold it in us, masked as junk,
The way your genes switch on germs

That died in them and left shells,
Bones of bugs, stuck in the dark
Wastes of the beasts that lived on,
That still slip out at night, jump
From one locked room to the next,
Then go to work, make a mess?
What if you can’t, but we do?