"Future Imperfect," by Stephen Collis

So what will happen between this unusually warm November and an unspecified but nearing future when it will have warmed however many degrees Celsius above this present stretching global mean / asking for a friend
 
I feel tense give me a / tense such as actions that will be completed before some other event in the future / plot a line: A (present)—B (future) / and place the future perfect somewhere between those points / but who knows what ontological status B has now is the problem
 
If we don’t know where we are going how will we know when we’ve gone too far / #capitalism / to make our future perfect there must be a deadline we work towards / now to then / the breach coming between we choose I choose you I choose all of you let’s do this now and then
 
Say: we will always have been living in the future like this / say: we will have always been pondering the course of history unfolding / say: our descendants will have always been thinking / what were they thinking / when thinking about us in all those thoughtful days to come / but
 
There is no future imperfect in English / there is no tense in which what is to come is not deadline but / state of continuity / I want to state some continuity / look at the climate and say / my grammar did this to me / my grammar and / my economy
 
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Stephen Collis is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Commons (Talon Books 2008), Once in Blockadia (Talon Books 2016) and Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten (Talon Books 2018). Current research on the climate emergency and human and other displacements is involved in two in-process projects: Future Imperfect (poetry) and A Sestina for Max Sebald (prose). He lives near Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish Territory, and teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University.