1,000 Guillotines

There just ain't
no goddamn way
we can get this
guillotine
through this alley;
I don't care who
is on the other end
or how badly
they have a neck
that needs
a dashed line
and a blade.

We made it too big.
We made it as big
as we thought we needed
based on the
number of lined throats
we knew
were waiting.

We made it three hundred
feet high and
a mile wide
with a blade the
size of a
football field
and we put it
on wheels and
started it rolling.

1,000 Guillotines

We didn't count on
the alley.

In retrospect, we
planned badly.
In retrospect, this
is not the ideal
solution to the
enormity of the
number of
problems.

Thinking harder, now,
with the benefit of hindsight,
we should have

made 1,000 smaller guillotines.