Another lecture sets me loose
among some hypothetical.
I wonder what might be right here,
yet out there, someplace past all this,
if I'm no student scrawling notes
on theories of the multiverse.

Is this the beach or theater?
One busy trendy restaurant?
A concert hall? The salty sea?
A road between despair and hope?
A racetrack where the horses run?
And who am I? How do I live?

A lifeguard or as Sophocles?
The baker bending dough in shapes?
Conductor, Ahab, or the whale?
The driver or the passenger?
The jockey or the gambler?
Such easy dreaming near these windows.

More lamps outline the twilight campus.
Distant rooms wink out to darkness.
I gather up my lesson notes,
erase the chalked words Many Worlds,
and thank my pupils for attending.
The evening feels like everything
is possible as once before.