Ifs and Thens

If you turn out to be right, at the end, and no one ever knows I held a pen or wrote anything virtuous other than my Christian name in scribble/cursive blend on legal forms, thus failing to defend my structure’s ink, then yes, it means you win. It also means the moment all your kin let leak the common tear you couldn’t lend, no one will know you had a name to write, a cause to live, or a daughter you failed. But, if, as I suspect you think you might, you turn out being wrong in having jailed a poet with your lies, imagine the night our daughter reads the sonnets then prevailed.