In Another Universe By Cathy Ulrich

In another universe, there you are. Perfectly-formed, beautiful you.

I would go to that place if I could, tiptoeing through the membrane between the universes or tearing it jagged if that’s what was necessary.

Your mother would be slumbering peacefully in her bed. She’d have bangs and never wear too much makeup. Such small differences would mean you were born.

If she was awakened by my presence, she would believe it was only a dream and roll onto her side, thinking reflection, twin, doppelganger.

It would be just you and me then. You under a soft blanket in the bassinet that your grandmother had chosen for you. I would lift you out of your bassinet, tenderly, and cradle you in my arms so nicely that you would never know it wasn’t your own mother holding you, but a stranger.

In that universe where you have been born, I would kiss your forehead, leaving, perhaps, a trace of lipstick for your mother to wonder over, before placing you back in your bassinet and returning to my own universe.

Before laying you down, though, I would whisper one thing to you that you could never answer, not in your universe or mine: Will you forgive me?

© 2014 Cathy Ulrich

Cathy Ulrich’s poetry has been published in Wind Magazine and the Crab Creek Review, and her flash fiction has been published in Every Day Fiction.

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