According to the Gospel of Yes

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.
 
Credit

Copyright © 2017 by Dana Levin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 9, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem
“I was stomping around my house, saying ‘No’ (why? I cannot remember) and suddenly felt how it made a hole in my throat. My thoughts turned to the Doctrine of Signatures: a medieval idea that the forms of things suggest their function. We still see it in alternative food theory: a carrot slice looks like an eye, therefore carrots are good for sight, for example. Here it's about the sound and feel of saying ‘No’ in English: No as a hole-maker, an eraser, a pit. But: No can also be helpful, necessary, crucial. Thus: who might have an investment in libeling No? Why Yes, of course. I’m working now on a Gospel of No, where Yes comes in for similar treatment.”
—Dana Levin