It’s a thrill to say No.
The way it smothers
everything that beckons—
Any baby in a crib
will meet No’s palm
on its mouth.
And nothing sweet
can ever happen
to No—
who holds your tongue captive
behind your teeth, whose breath
whets the edge
of the guillotine—
N, head of Team Nothing,
and anti-ovum O.
And so the pit can never
engender
the cherry—
in No, who has drilled a hole
inside your body—
No.
Say it out loud.
Why do you love the hole
No makes.
Copyright ©2017 by Dana Levin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day by the Academy of American Poets.