The No Poems

To bear up, cross, back,
To take what was meant
And do some damned thing
With it or to it,
These are the poem’s tricks,

And this can’t help that.
We could curse, or curse
You, or break some rules.
It won’t break us free.
We’re a sort of bomb

But not timed. No time,
No pin can pull us.
When we learn to eat,
What it is to eat,
What it is to feed,

To lay waste, to waste,
And so on, we’ll live.
We’ll be a live bomb.
But for now, we’re tricks,
Craft, tools you had made

For you by your ghosts,
The lives that went first.
We bear up, cross, back,
And take what was meant.
No’s just one of us.