Many Worlds Hypothesis
I wouldn’t know, but what if / every time I order a ___________________/ another
(dark roast/cappuccino),
world is born? Maybe somewhere, / there exists a place where you
________________________/ & everything after is different. Where you’re a trillionaire /
(never looked/looked away)
& I’m a _____________. / What I’m saying is, maybe I ____________________ / & you
(robin/thrush) (left you/never woke up)
decided to act on a dim impulse to buy __________________________, / & maybe you win.
(a Powerball ticket/an oak tree)
Maybe you take my ashes & ____________ them / as you’re planting, & decades later, I
(bury/scatter)
visit you / ___________________, but you’re old then & don’t remember. / Or, what if
(on the patio/in a dream)
the mammal that turned into a whale doesn’t / slink into the ocean? Eventually, / it
becomes a rose-colored _________, / & through a course of unfortunate events, goes
(fox/snake)
extinct. / Maybe its ____________ becomes a verdant haven / for caterpillars, which is
(flesh/skeleton)
what we are, / & just as we meet, you’re propelled by _______________ / to ascend a
(disgust/instinct)
tortuous blade of witchgrass, / & I __________________________. / It’s the not
(fall over backwards/follow you)
knowing that kills us. / The thought that a __________ world could exist / where we
(worse/better)
______________________________________. / A world where we die alone. / A world
(turn into butterflies/get eaten by a flycatcher)
where everything is perfect.
Seth Peterson is an emerging writer, researcher, and physical therapist in Tucson, Arizona. His poems are in Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Ninth Letter, The Pinch, RHINO, and elsewhere. He was recently a finalist for the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Contest and the John & Eileen Allman Prize.
