Arguing the Case

I need not plead for you

in the court of nightmares,

masking with bravado

a trembling sense

of being at the mercy of its sentences,

implacable, arbitrary, cruel.

I’ll take your case

to the light of day

where all those looming shadows

are revealed as two-dimensional —

lying flat along the ground

and bending with the walls,

insubstantial, fleeting as the hours —

For you were never subject

to the tales of failure,

never marred by the projections

of a bad light.

You have always stood empowered

in the grandeur of the genius

that ever brings you forth

intact, upright.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 5, 2013