Each not-criminal in an orange jumpsuit
does the shackle shuffle into the courtroom,
looks hopefully at the spectator benches for
anyone familiar, friendly,
stands, sits, stands again before the judge,
hands manacled in front, chain just long enough
for hands to grasp a folder of forms,
not long enough to hold the folder open and place inside
another piece of white paper
from the white judge
or the white immigration attorney
as the white interpreter conveys their legalese to
all the brown not-criminals in orange jumpsuits
hoping not to be deported.
Mary Turck lives and writes in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has published extensively as a journalist, and has published one chapbook, Forest City Poems.
Photo by Mario Caruso.
