“Jury Selection,” a poem ..


Hushed anxiety murmurs in trembling chorus/ The stunned assemblage of potential jurors/ Fearful lest their lives be arrested for three months

The clattering of lawyer notebooks closed, turned over, opened once again to ruminate/ Studying the consultant’s quaint codes of bias or benevolence/ A phalanx of minds trained to parse the law but/ Pitifully vacant in knowing the other met in the vast wood-paneled arena

Nervous pens click as the pleasant judge hears pleas of hardship/ Stunned men and women told to resume their seats, pleas turned down/ Privilege of citizenship, solemn duty, and/ Fourteen lives finally bent around in grotesque poses of adjustment

One response to ““Jury Selection,” a poem ..”

  1. Jenny Brody Avatar
    Jenny Brody

    I love this poem, it captures the tension and anxiety in a courtroom during a seemingly mundane moment, and the way people’s lives can be changed irrevocably by a single word from a judge. Family law cases are all bench trials, so I don’t work w/ juries, but the poem speaks to the way I sometimes feel in court, as I click my pen in the fraught silence, waiting for a decision that will alter the life of a child forever.

    Reply

Leave a comment