Over exposed lobster,

I sat with my father 

in open Boston air

when he gathered the language —

in 1960 Attleboro, Massachusetts

his uncle Mark got molested

while Mark and my father 

scored God points 

as altar boys at Saint Mary’s School.

Father James Porter glossed over 

my father’s five-year-old frame

and pinned a twelve-year-old Mark 

among the thirty children  

who all clamored 

like lobsters boiled alive, unheard 

behind a Catholic door.

In The Many Worlds Theory,

is there a multiverse 

Porter pounced on my father’s

boyhood, his body buckling

before he heaved 

the weight of young marriage.

If I step through a wormhole 

into this shivering reality,

would I still dine over cracked lobster 

with his retired self

or stop Porter 

from loosening his belt

within Saint Mary’s walls?

We live in this universe:

Porter died of prostate cancer,

my parents celebrate 

their anniversary every June, 

and Mark walks past Saint Mary

of the Immaculate to work.

Last year, his name got printed

in The Globe. Everyone knows 

but they only hand him

their smiles.