What If by Lauren Scharhag

The What If games are real now.
What If you were on a deserted island?
What would you take with you?
Who would you take?
(That’s easy, I’d take you.)
What If you could only read one book forever? 
What If you could only eat one food every day
for the rest of your life, what would it be?
(What’s the store out of now?)
What If you met Hitler, what would you do?
Here we are, marooned.
Let’s have a staring contest.
I stare at you and you stare back
because there’s no one else here.
What If this was your last day on Earth?
What If this was Earth’s last day?
Let’s play Bloody Mary.
(Do you see yourself?)
Let’s make shadow puppets.
There is no time as day shifts to night.
The bare trees come to leaves only
to shed again. Wasn’t it
a week ago April? On this,
the five-hundredth day of spring?
Whatever happened to forty days,
forty nights? Will we ever get
to the other side of November? 
Will we ever turn that corner?
Let’s play rock-paper-scissors.
Papercut. Rock smash. Paper mask. 
Beer beats anxiety. Every time.
Best out of three, six-pack. 
1-2-3-4, I declare another war.
You don’t stand a chance.
These thumbs are agile and muscular.
They see me scrollin’. They hatin’.
Let’s play cops and robbers.
I’ll catch you and get you down
on the ground.
You’ll never take me alive
‘cause I’m the one with the gun, 
but all the games are real now.
Let’s play marbles. Let’s play jacks.
We’re playing for keepsies.
See my fistful of knucklebones.
See my haul of shooters and cat’s eyes.
That’s the way the ball bounces, jack,
‘cause all the games are real now.
Let’s play double-dutch.
Here’s the rope. 
Our hands are tied.
This is it.
This is the game.
Who’s out?
(Tagging from six feet apart. Freeze.)
All the games are real now.
We’re stuck at home base.
Let’s choose sides.
Let’s choose a team.
Let’s flip a coin. 
Engine engine number nine,
going down Chicago line.
Goodbye, Mr. Obama.
Goodbye, Lake Michigan.  
Goodbye, Wrigley Field.
No one’s throwing out the pitch.
Call it. Call it. 
Olly-olly-oxen-free,
except when we’re not.
Swing and a miss,
mouthful of sawdust
and crackerjacks.
Redline. Blueline.
Flatline. Toy surprise. 

What would you do?
What would you do?
What would you do?

All the games are real now.

Lauren Scharhag is the author of fourteen books, including Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press) and Languages, First and Last (Cyberwit Press). Her work has appeared in over 150 literary venues around the world. Recent honors include the Seamus Burns Creative Writing Prize, three Best of the Net nominations, and acceptance into the 2021 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition. She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com