If I could
erase one event
from history...

I could say
Hitler’s rejection
from art school.

Twice.

Imagine
if they had said yes.

Maybe he paints.
Maybe history changes.

Maybe.

But that’s just
a theory,
isn’t it?

I could erase
the Nevada bomb tests
that poisoned downwinders
in my mother’s homeland.
The bomb.
Its invention.
Its use.

I could erase
the slave trade.
Wars.
Assassinations.
Science denied.
Voters suppressed.

So many mistakes
I could erase.

If I really could.

But history
doesn’t melt
because we wish it away.

Maybe the better question
is what we do
with what remains.

Look at it.
All of it.
The victories.
The failures.
The cruelty.
The shame.
Leave the blemishes
where we can see them.

Remember.

And when history
offers them again,
say never more.

And mean it.

Down the Erase History Rabbit Hole

What if one moment in history had gone differently? Historians, writers and the endlessly curious have been asking that question for centuries. If today’s poem has you wondering about roads history didn’t take, here are a few rabbit holes worth exploring.

What if Napoleon Hadn’t Lost Europe? — Smithsonian Magazine
A fascinating look at alternate history itself, including where the idea came from and why we keep imagining different versions of the past.

What if historians started taking the “what if” seriously? — Aeon
A deeper dive into counterfactual history, including that irresistible question of what might have happened if Hitler had pursued art instead of politics.

What If Martin Luther King Hadn’t Been Killed? — HISTORY
Historians consider how American politics, civil rights and the antiwar movement might have developed had King lived.

What If Robert F. Kennedy Had Lived? — HISTORY
Could the 1968 election, and perhaps the political direction of the United States, have unfolded differently?

What If the Moon Landing Had Failed? — HISTORY
This one comes unusually close to an alternate timeline because the Nixon administration actually prepared for it. A presidential speech was ready in case Armstrong and Aldrin never returned from the moon.

The True History Behind The Plot Against America — Smithsonian Magazine
A look at the real history behind Philip Roth’s imagined America in which Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin Roosevelt in 1940.

What If the Cuban Missile Crisis Had Gone Nuclear? — History News Network
A particularly chilling counterfactual because the distance between the history we know and nuclear escalation was frighteningly small. It also connects nicely with the nuclear thread in your poem.

Just remember: there is always another what if? farther down the rabbit hole.