Conviction

Some things are best not be known
for parents
that teenagers are smoking marijuana
exploring the bodies of the opposite gender
or experimenting with those of the same.
Then it is easy to pretend
what may be very likely … is not.
The sleights of sight, inadvertence, inattention, insincerity
are focused by twin lenses : accident and malice.

One Monday morning
a young woman – a university student
who judgemental maleness deemed
disproportionately bold in relation to plainness
shrills inequality.
Allegedly weekend call in is unfair
two tertiary colleagues receiving her share.
A promise to enquire
two days later a phone call demanding the verdict.

Clenched teeth and a quiet afternoon
resolve to prove her wrong
equality expected
reprimand practised – never delivered.
Two years of expired timesheets confirm her grievance.

Self righteous turns brittle contrite
but something caught
denim jeans stepping over a barbed wire fence
minor league scorecards imprint substitutions
random
and then not.
Determination to be right uncovers wrong.
Theft.

Cross reference.
Correlation
elimination
explanation.
Summation : sample size = 2
one a personal favourite
promoted in advance of merit.

What lies between spinning a chamber
and pulling the trigger?
The clarity of God
or
human caprice?
Hope hoped not
and then …….
decided some things are best not known.