Docketmemory
Dozens of hands have lifted me
the registrar who pressed too hard,
the counsel rifling always for the paragraph that might save someone.
But I remember one above all others.
Not the presiding officer's
that hand held me the way a man holds what he has already decided.
I mean the petitioner's hands.
Dry from travel.
A callus on the right thumb from work I have no name for.
She held me at the corner, not the spine
as if she knew she was not entitled to my centre.
When she set me down before the bench,
I felt the precise weight of her hope: not large, not small
the weight of one who no longer expects rescue
but asks only that the world note what happened, and when.
I am not judging.
I am the file.
I remember everything the verdict did not.
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