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JURY SERVICE

A good start;

I couldn't work out

The door code

To the Jury Room

Jigsaws, old videos,

Joysticks for computer games:

We're in for a long wait.

It's all gloriously amateur.

The jury are all outsiders, who would never

Normally be in the same building together

Let alone a jury box.

The witnesses and defendant

Don't want to be here and

Are only too keen to get away.

The legal fraternity focus

On Barbados or the Dow Jones.

Only the Ushers are here

For the duration -

And the canteen staff,

Not that we are allowed to mix

With the hoi-poloi down stairs.

The anonymity is strange;

We are important

Because

Nobody knows who we are.

As a writer -

How lovely to note that down -

It feels odd that I can't take

Anything I write out of the court

So any pearls are left

Beneath the bench.

Things I can say

The jury benches in Court 3 are like miserichords;

Once in place we cannot move and perch facing towards

The wigs, defendant, video links, stuck here to listen to

The slow unfolding of a case where we must search what's true

Amidst the jargon and the hints of things that might have been

But now in court, listed infull, seem bloated and obscene.

I hope that these miserichords and our forced meditations

Lead to a truth beyond the facts and point all to salvation.

As the case goes on

All the maggots

Crawl out of the woodwork.

The endless patience of the lawyers

Trying to get objective statements

From the intellectually challenged

Never ceases to amaze.

Paint dries more quickly

Than counsel cross-examining

A vapid witness.

Dr Brian Hick summer 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 2.8.23