Reasonable Doubt by Jim Healy

In a room of 600 expemptionless jurors
Or alone with you in half light
I cannot easily accept my objectivity
Called to question.
Omniscient, infallible, I fear
Only giving an answer wrong
Or so I believe until excused for cause
Unknown, unspoken, under 20 foot ceilings
(Justice is tall, needs headroom),
Until I see a withering in your eyes,
And suddenly I am sure
Only of a desperate bias,
Of truth defined by need, by circumstance.
If I were as unimportant as I feel,
If the world could indeed spin and revolve
With my approval
I might dissolve without objection
In the ancient stained linoleum
Or dissipate into traceless smoke
Not even stinging your eyes
Or scenting your hair.
But, mercifully, before judgment is final
My name is loudspeakered again,
I remember your laugh and my shelter in it,
And I think the rotating, circling earth
Must need me just a little.