If Not Now, When?

When we have crossed the line

When we have stopped being unhappy and can see happy
When our teeth stop traveling in search of substance

When we demand
When we no longer beg

When we are imagined fully by another
When the sense of otherness is tamed

When learning is the equivalent of living
When it stops being a big deal
When getting up for work is jazz and not techno

When the lovers blow hot always hot
When the cool is demonstrated by a hand in a fire unburned

When street is asphalt and not adjective
When prairie takes precedence
When river is clean fuel
When ocean slips pregnancy to us through our eyes

When bird and snake combine to make historical marker
When tumbledown prisons become flower mounds

When we are heroin to the officer
When we are free of the baggie and are vaporized like old contracts

When the last of the butchers falls meatless into our arms
When the last of the lightning squad sits at our tables
When a mean mumbling is sampled and made to rock
When prettiness is established and common as every face we see

When this means nothing
When this is quaint
When no one understands this at any emotional level
When it is clear to all

Then