Poem I: No Deed to Nothing

No Deed to Nothing

or do I annihilate - asked at the lectern like a man choosing a tie.

An / nihil / ate : to bring to nothing. Whose nothing?

You did not make the nothing. You cannot lease it out.

Show me the deed. Show me the seal that marked you before birth.

A mother in Isfahan a mother in Ohio same salt in the milk

(A microphone is not a mandate) - 

                                                              (a warhead is not an argument)

Eighty-one years a shadow on a Hiroshima step

has waited to stand up. Still the menu reads: deal or

[ ]

No one is issued the the right to zero.

Not the elected. Not the anointed. Not the one with the codes.

The nothing is no one's. It was never yours to give.