if,
if not,
if when,
if wonder or want,
if chance or choice,
if this for that
to buy some love
if love with if is love at all,
if could be or should have,
if and only if
or if only maybe,
or if we stay all night
and turn to stone
and moss grows up
from the giving earth
and overtakes this moment
and all the frenzied if
of the world fades away
into is
right now,
what if —
and if not now,
still tomorrow
is another day
© John Allison Cannon
If is a deceptively simple word — full of promise or tinged with regret. Poets have riffed on if in ways that open the human spirit to possibility and in ways that bring a soul to tears. If can be disorienting, which is hopefully reflected in the structure of this poem. Read deliberately. In any moment, you can choose the meaning of if you need and whether if can become is.
