Was Is Won’t Be

Where two or more folks tilt
Their heads to talk, there will
Be some kind of crime hatched

Soon—if not to be done
By them, then to be named
By them as done by those

Who are not them. (The crimes,
Of course, have to be done
By those who can know crimes.)

In the end, rules make them—
Shame hounds them—we shape them—
We are them. But not this.

This won’t be, this can’t be,
More or less than what is,
What is made by what was.

And what is this? Well, wind,
For one thing. You know, breeze—
Blows in, gets in the sleeves

Of saints and thieves. Not in
Cells or sick-beds? Not in
Coal mines or big-box stores?

Right, then. This is a gas.
You can’t be and not breathe
In some air, good or bad.

Let’s start there. We and you
Are in air. Was and is
What you need. What we seed.