Going to Court

Wilkes Barre PA

Description

Going to court is scary, They don’t tell you anything. Not even the day or the hour. Always an awful surprise. At night a restless sleep finds me, With fear in my lonely heart. The fear that tomorrow may be The day that they take me to court. It starts when I’m roused in darkness, And marched to the holding cells. Down long bright hallways, Through loud clanging doors, Through metal detectors, And gates that open slowly by themselves. I march past angry guards who jeer at me and mock, And who mistake their scorn for superiority. I am placed in a holding cell With other frightened men who sit together To wait for an hour or two or three. I know that it’s time when I hear The chains outside in the hall. I know what to do when they come in, And what they will do if I forget. I put out my hands and I face them, To receive what I do not want. The cold, hard steel on my wrists, On my ankles, and about my waist. They don’t care that the hard, heavy steel Leaves cuts, and bruises, and marks. And they never forget their icy looks of contempt, Which they mistake for superiority. Now shackled hand and foot, I can barely move at all. I hobble down hallways, through gates and doors, And struggle feebly into the wagon, As the guards curse at us and taunt, And mistake their derision for superiority. But as we drive downtown, I can see through the bars on the wagon. I see sidewalks and buildings and homes. I see trees that were bare when I got here, And will soon be bare again. I see a woman walking with a coffee cup in her hand, And a man with a newspaper under his arm, And I wonder, “Did I ever walk outside like that? With a coffee cup in my hand? Or a newspaper under my arm?” But the answers are buried too deep… So I look down at the steel on my ankles, On my wrists, and about my waist. I pull on them to see If they are real and If this is real and If I am really here and If this is really my life. Then I remember That I’m going to court And I feel scared again. I wonder what they will do to me there, Because they don’t tell you anything. ====================== Written while spending two years in “pre-trial detention” for a crime that never occurred.