Justice Arnett by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

It is true, fellow citizens, / That my old docket lying there for years / On a shelf above my head and over / The seat of justice, I say it is true / That docket had an iron rim / Which gashed my baldness when it fell --

(Somehow I think it was shaken loose / By the heave of the air all over town / When the gasoline tank at the canning works / Blew up and burned Butch Weldy) --

But let us argue points in order, / And reason the whole case carefully:

First I concede my head was cut, / But second the frightful thing was this:

The leaves of the docket shot and showered / Around me like a deck of cards / In the hands of a sleight of hand performer.

And up to the end I saw those leaves / Till I said at last, "Those are not leaves, / Why, can't you see they are days and days / And the days and days of seventy years?

And why do you torture me with leaves / And the little entries on them? "