Galaxy of the Courthouse Steps
Rent from DeepDyve- Galaxy of the Courthouse Steps
It can turn as crazy as silk tiesIn variations of light and dark Log Cabin.Wherever one looks there are more
And more steps, more or lessAmounts of justice to mete.The guilty are praying for leniency
Beside the innocent. On the courthouseSteps, a young man sits, waitingTo be called. Your grandmother,
Then young, heads past to pay a tax.Their eyes connect. He's a characterWitness in his friend's rape trial.
This quilt pattern can look geometric,Sheep on a steep hillsideTumbling for lack of the crook.
This man is not guilty or innocent,Yet complicit. He is your grandfather.Your blood flows with his. [End Page 68]
Cathryn Hankla was born in Richlands, in the Virginia coalfields. Professor of English and director of the Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins University, she serves as poetry editor of The Hollins Critic. She is the author of four fiction titles, including a new story collection, Fortune Teller Miracle Fish, and seven poetry collections, the latest being Last Exposures: A Sequence.
