Abscond

(The prompt calls for choosing a single word;
Dredging up a hundred would be absurd.
Why waste the readers’ time and mine,
when one good poem should do just fine?)

                   -o- 

If Romeo had absconded with Juliet one night, 
Shakespeare might not have had a play to write.
He didn’t care much for happy endings
(with exceptions worth defending).

‘Abscond’ is worthy, I trust you will agree;
Too bad it can’t be used retroactively.

Had The Bard but put that word into play,
His dead lovers might be living today.