Because I did not stop for Gas

My Motorbike stopped for me

And it was just the two of Us

And Irresponsibility.

I pushed Him slowly, we knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too

To preserve my Sanity.

We passed the Market where people stared

Quite unreservedly

We passed the Mobs of Gazing Tourists

We passed the Tuk-tuks waiting.

Or rather, they passed us–

Their exhaust suffocating and still—

For I had only a helmet, not a mask

And only a sweater, nary a scarf.

We paused before a Place that seemed

An Oasis in a Desert

With Pumps that were quite visible

And PTT was on the sign

Since then, ‘tis Years and yet

Seems shorter than the Day

I first learned the Consequences

Of Irresponsibility.

In memory of the time several years ago that I really did run out of gas in the middle of the touristy Old Chiang Mai city center. This poem is a parody of Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death.”https://poets.org/poem/because-i-could-not-stop-death-479