Yeh, But What If?

The year twenty-thousand

Has to happen, although

It’s unlikely to be

Marked as such. You can know

Where all the stars will be

By your calculations.

It’s inevitable,

Unless something crashes

Into the Earth so hard

Everything stops spinning.

Then there won’t be more years.

Once you start that what if

Thinking—what if black holes

Swallow up the sun,

What if time’s fabric rips,

What if?—you realize,

The year twenty-thousand

Itself’s what-if fiction.