Like Means to Be

To mean and to be are, for most,
Close to the core, while to be like,

Save for the likes of a Paul North,
Is less than to be or to mean—

Not the thing, not the Ding an sich,
Just like it, more or less like it.

But North could be right that to be
Like, not to be, just to be like,

Is more like the thing than the thing.
(North and the like might not like that—

That might not be quite what they mean.)
Seems like. Let’s say there are two things,

If there is one—there might be none.
To be like is to be the same

And to hold in that same a change,
The way the lungs hold in a breath,

The way the breath holds change in words,
The way one of those words means soul,

A word much like the word for breath.
To be like is not the same as

To be and may not mean. To be
Like means to be both same and changed.

As all we are is both the same
And changed, we mean, we’re all all like.