Billy Clem: Dear Lady Justice

Dear Lady Justice,

You are here without a summons.

Voices insist you be taken

upstairs to crowds waiting

to watch you, hear you proclaim

their imperative. Refuse, at last,

dirty from use, long stationed in rooms

of churning bile and duty shirked.

Move outside now free as spring’s robins.

Have nothing of these scripted circuses.

Search for space not up for auction

by men who claim you without scales,

without blindfold. Rip off that gown,

grey, tattered, and go among trees

thin as girls’ legs. See small waving

fronds, the hands of children who need you

to pick them up right now and run.

Vox Populi