Whatsoever

From a peak above thirty-five parts

Per million around 1815,

Whatsoever declined to scant five

Appearances per each million words

Of English two centuries later.

Even common none whatsoever

Is starting to feel perilously

Archaic now, when glimpsed in the wild.

What are the odds? None whatsoever,

None at all. Zero, zilch, not a chance.

It still works as intensifier

Of nothing, which is to say, a shove

As close as possible to the edge,

Infinitesimal’s synonym,

The smallest of all possible things,

The last indivisible atom,

Minimal ripple of quantum field,

Barest sliver of what’s not nothing,

Bizarrely capacious, nonetheless.

Loving anything whatsoever

Sweeps all possible phenomena,

Perhaps all conceivable as well,

Into a single category.

Let’s not abandon whatsoever—

Sure, just another word, but the one

With the thinnest slice of existence

And, as such, including every one.