“It is late morning
the Sun’s lying low,
I’m tired.
The process siphons energy away
surely, steadily, without any remorse.
I watch the people at the court
inmates huddled in the restricted area
wondering what their next hearing will require,
afraid of the pains, the expense, the bad news.
I think of their hand cuffs,
the blood circle around their wrists
and migraines of the soul.
We all have rights that break
like organs quitting under pressure
resuscitated only by law’s medics,
repositories of care for others,
Janus-faced Samaritans
bowed by the burden of the world
the disbelief in their remedy in their faces,
and on their backs the weight of consciousness of
generations.”