by Stacey Park
Well? He waits. On God, I swear—
on God, I submit. I swell with devotion
he wants but nothing I admit penetrates
his heart. But he loves this ritual, my waning
breath and his grip on the gavel. I play
the guilty party, perform contrition
so real my eyes well to flood us before
he could bang the verdict.
Isn’t this getting old? The birds trill
above, bored of the same exhibition,
as we drift in a river of my own making,
while he insists we go again.
Stacey Park is a Korean-Canadian writer living in Southern California. Her work has appeared in Decomp Journal, The Underwater Railroad, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Baltimore Review, Portland Review, and elsewhere.