Many Worlds Theory

Parallel Worlds

There is a parallel world.
I am in one, reading a cookbook
while stirring ingredients
over a wood stove,
a cat warming itself nearby.

There is another parallel world.
I am in this one too.
I am in a battle, dodging bullets
before charging blindly
to the next foxhole. I have a letter
in my breast pocket from a girlfriend
informing me, she’s found someone else.

I am in another world, leading a llama
up a mountain, a thin rope fraying,
the only guide in this area
abandoned me to this cliff ending nowhere.

I am world after world. Some I am content,
boring, predictable. Others I am on edge,
in perils, risking it all. It is all either
or. There is no in-between. Cliffhanger,
or a snore-fest. And in this world,
normal has flexible standards like stoplights,
and sometimes people speed through
before the light changes, and sometimes
they do not make it. In other worlds they make it.