A Conscience Objection
Part Two of The Last Knot in A Series of Knots
Cowards Die Many Times Before Their Deaths
~William Shakespeare
What if it only half worked, the gun
there are no guarantees it would work all the way
the train conductor would feel helpless and would lose sleep
and remember the day when it returned next year, at least for a few years
his children would loose a little of him
I could get my car up to 90 at least and ruin it but I would want my mother to have it
there would be a lot of people late to work or late coming home
and a few cops would have so much paper work
and again what if it didn’t work
a bathtub would be nice- all that warm water, but it would go cold
and the person who found me would have trouble going into bathrooms
and a therapist isn’t cheap
the same is true of the garage
in fact I can’t let anyone find it
the leftovers, I mean
I can’t do that to a friend or stranger
it just wouldn’t be fare
so the ocean is the most logical choice
but then I would be contributing to the pacific garbage patch
ideally, if I could find a bathtub at the end of the universe
that would sink in to space like split ship into a understanding sea
I won’t publish this poem
like everything else it’s not that good
and people might ask or be worried
or what if they weren’t
it is better I keep it
so that one day
I can find it
and remember
how things
have changed
and if they haven’t
then I was overly optimistic
but will regret little
there is always time to fix mistakes
