You Know You Gonna’ See My Face

“164th District — Judge Jamison” by vaXzine is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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Jury Duty Reflection #2

“You Know You Gonna’ See My Face”

By Jane Tawel

May 19, 2022

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You know, Juror Lady?

When I first saw you in the seat,

and you let your eyes meet mine,

just that one brief time, and I said, in my head,

“Praise the Lord!” she is lookin’ right at my face,

and no one else in that place did that, you know?

Avoidance of the eyes is the order of the day.

Cuz’ just seein’ me there, everybody is aware,

I must be guilty, right? their consciences don’t put up any fight.

But I could tell yours did. I could tell you knew sin.

And though you knew it was your civic duty,

you felt it like a weight, so heavy duty,

to be sittin’ there tryin’ for size your discrimination,

in honor of your nation, but that’s the same nation,

that’s always kept folks like me in our station, yeah?

So how can you judge me, you had to ask,