The Jury is Out by Liv Iacono (Connecticut, 23)

The Jury is Out
I sit in the courtroom,
not sure if I’m the prosecution,
or the defense,
or the judge, or the jury.
I may be all of them.

You sit at the stand,
tap the mic, and ask if this thing is on,
and it is, but it’s popping and cracking
and making that awful, high-pitched sound.
We all cover our ears.
There’s a slight murmur among the crowd.

Someone asks,
Is this your first offense?
You go quiet.
The microphone still rings.
They ask me,
Is this his first offense?
and I am quiet, too, at first--
do I dare condemn you?

Do I dare let them know
that I’ve let you do this before?
Can I even keep it in, if I wanted to?

I look at you, and it seems that I can’t.
My face crinkles up.
It’s hot and wailing,
“It’s not! He hurts me! He just keeps hurting me!”
The jury erupts like the onlookers of a wrestling match.
I’m not even sure if they’re supposed to do that.

“I’m sorry, dear,” I mouth,
like this is all my fault,
“but please stop hurting me.”

The microphone before you has begun to flood.
It seems my screaming has pushed the tears out of you, too.
The judge bangs the gavel.
The jury is out.

They start to take you away.
I don’t know what else I expected.
I dive to the floor and wrap myself around your leg:
a desperate child, 
a lost duck, 
a woven thread, running.

The executioner stands idly by.
I grip you tighter.

I decide we’ll go down together.




Liv Iacono is a Creative Writing student at Western Connecticut State University who has a passion for poetry, fiction, and personal essays. Previous publications include her poem Men, which appears in Broadsides: Breathing Space.