Fleur Adcock
Witnesses
We three in our dark decent clothes,
unlike ourselves, more like the three
witches, we say, crouched over the only
ashtray, smoke floating into our hair,
wait. An hour; another hour.
If you stand up and walk ten steps
to the glass doors you can see her there
in the witness box, a Joan of Arc,
straight, still, her neck slender,
her lips moving from time to time
in reply to voices we can’t hear:
‘I put it to you…I should like to suggest…’
It’s her small child who is at stake.
His future hangs from these black-clad
proceedings, these ferretings under her sober
dress, under our skirts and dresses
to sniff out corruption: ‘I put it to you
that in fact your husband…that my client…’
that you yourself initiated the violence…
that your hysteria…’ She sits like marble.
We pace the corridors, peep at the distance
from door to witness box (two steps up,
remember, be careful not to trip
when the time comes) and imagine them there,
the ones we can’t see. A man in a wig
and black robes. Two other men
in lesser wigs and gowns. More men
in dark suits. We sit down together,
shake the smoke from our hair, pass round
more cigarettes (to be held carefully
so as not to smirch our own meek versions
of their clothing) and wait to be called.
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