Mom and Me in 2009 Copyright MDMikus

Mom’s High School Boyfriend

If war had not come
and he had lived on and
they had stayed together
I would not have been born.

The unique combination of genes
the lattice upon which I grew to be
the one choosing this path for myself
all that would not…exist

here and now anyway
whatever you believe about
alternate universes where
the other forks in the road were taken.

My potential existence hung uncontrolled
on so much unbeknownst to me—
the baby yet to come—then
if war and chaos and despair

had not shaken the world
like a snow globe but violent
and at the conclusion settled back into
a sailor and a nurse meeting

through mutual friends, marrying
in their common parish church
raising seven children
me being the second.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
(c) 2015

Published in Journal of Modern Poetry, vol. 20, (2017) The Poetry Writer’s Guide to the Galaxy