It was three minutes’ testimony. Took her three
hours to write, three days to work up the nerve
to begin to write, three weeks to get used to the
idea of speaking her truth to even those small
powers, a regional panel of a state agency that
may or may not report to its federal counterpart,
no one is quite sure, the bus ride north three
hundred miles, she walks across a marble floor
beneath a towering rotunda through a building
designed to intimidate and she is not immune to
design, she is human and she is anxious, and her
hands shake and her voice wavers as she has her
say and her say is duly recorded for a posterity
that will include her child, and perhaps her child’s
child, and maybe it will do some good, and maybe
pigs will fly across the sky and perch like sparrows
on the powerlines in silhouette against the petal
pink sunset on the long ride home.