A chirp sounds in the courtroom. What I think

a bird is just the laugh in his throat.

The coat, bulletproof and stiff. I fix my eyes on

it, the only thing — the DA tells me— I have to say

is the color of his coat. I don’t have to look at

him at all. Like a stone capping a stone, the blue of

his coat rests on my lungs. It is all I can say. Blue

like deep water that holds a cobalt sky above it.

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