Alternate Lives

(“Still Life”, 2021, original encaustic) Alternate Lives Time appears to go in a line From then to now And some times it does But at a certain point the stream Becomes a river Which then spreads into a delta. I’ve always found the metaphors Of literal geography to be the best, And in this life can see the threads Of alternate lives play out All the what ifs We’ll never really know. What if my first wife and I had children Instead of abortions? I’m sure we would have stayed together, And my daughter by the next wife would not be, At least not who she is to me now. And what of my life with wife number three? Certainly that would not be. And in the alternate beings and not beings I would not have done all the things I have done to make me me And the same for everyone else touched And moved and divided by the flow of time. A flow that sometimes seems insignificant Until it clearly isn’t And the parting is complete, Until it isn’t, and some kind of unity, A whole greater than the parts Is realized again. (3/26/25)