by Alejandro Escudé
A garden of lawyers planted with the utmost care,
petunia lawyers, and rose lawyers, daisy and sunflower lawyers,
as the sun sprinkles its salty light over the plots; at night,
the moon rises like a white crow flying in eternal circles,
the stars spit old blue mucus—lawyers blooming among lawyers,
suited in pink, lilacs, oranges, the soil healthy, dark, biblical
beneath their lawyer root-feet. They dig deep down into the earth,
so far down their defenses are solid as stone. The judge
presides over the seasons. He of the morning cloth, he of the pit
and tractor. Green and motorized. His honor the plough,
his honor the keeper of the books. One lawyer reflects more
expressions than ripples in a water trough. His head a skull,
his mind an exactitude of inexactitudes. “Truth isn’t truth,”
he would often be heard whispering to the beetles that punctuated
the documents of creation. Indeed, the rain excised no tax
on him, this silly, ill-begotten snake who swore only to protect
the politicians politicking from stump to stump like magpies.
When the day comes pure, cold against the volcanic solitude,
think of the low road that sinks beneath the river. No flies
near the dead-spaces. Let’s not forget, justice isn’t human.
Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
