For 16 months I sensed the pendant sword
above my head, and felt the weight of stone
around my neck compress my collar bone,
so though I know the lawyers there were bored,
and plaintiff tension couldn’t be ignored,
still I was glad to meet the bad unknown,
and witness how complaints to action grown
were shrunk by truth to pebbles in a gourd.

The stone around my neck became the top
the table showed, its surface flecked with reams
of photocopied evidence in piles.
And long before the pointed sword could drop,
our questions redirected it to dreams,
so light and safe I left that place in smiles.