Alt History

one morning I woke

in the dirt-toilet timeline,

clean cool and muted, 

reading the news

in my earth closet,

no dampness, no splash,

just muted acoustics,

incense burning,

wood walls like a sauna,

no plastic or porcelain,

nothing cold or white,

a system that

churned or turned or

tilled and refilled

with the slow grace of soil,

not the panic of water

always rushing,

you could go to work whenever,

moving at the pace of earth

in this world,

the water had tried

and had been left behind,

unsanitary-seeming

to the people of this tear in time,

and, don't ask me how, but

the thing had advanced

like spaceships or farming or

phones or pants,

and the logs in the loam

slipped peacefully down,

and you walked away quiet

and soft

and free