Member Poem

Within the box, they say
the cat both lives and dies:
for each choice
there is another universe
where nature took a different path
and every course plays out
in an infinite sea of maybes.

So there must be a world
where I turned down that beer
and with sharper eyes I saw you
in the feeble moonlight, lost
in drunken half-worlds of your own;
unfuddled reflex sent my foot
into the floor, the belt
like iron around my chest,
hard metal howling to a brutal
stop.
And from the road you rose, unbroken,
white lips seizing precious breath.

Published in Acumen