DELIBERATION

When no one's looking
you try to tweeze a splinter
from underneath your nail.
It's there to stay, like that
sound from the street,
sprockets engaging chain,
knuckled metal. This jury
room with a stink in the air
ducts, pores of skin, the
foreman's hair. Third day
counting. You've forgotten
the declension of “his,”
“our,” “my” as applied to
guilt. The urge for confession
sluices pell-mell, water
over a low-head dam for
drowning.