Pleading Belly

The black cap lay at the judge's hand
though the fingers wriggled as I spoke.
My plea was not for me, I said,
but the innocent inside.
Some sighed. Most bellowed.
I heard the gathering of spit from the gallery,
but stringing me,
when gavel came to desk, could be
drowning someone that had yet
to learn what a thief was,
much less lay its chubby fingers
on linen left carelessly, on silver
calling in the sun
to three-day-fallow guts.
Too early for the probing of midwives
bundled back into the cell,
I hoped for transportation. Even a term
in this rat's nest was better
than a jig on the rope
like a scrap-bound puppet.
Then at midnight, the guard -
some oily ferret with a slate nails
and an eye that shivers
while the other stays bold and muddy -
shook my shoulder, hissed:
"Nine months, then they'll check again,
and if nothing shows -"
He yanked a necklace
tithed for protection from another she-lag
tight across his throat, grinning.
And so we came to our arrangement:
a gem of practicality. A nightly jump
into my skirts for him, and after time
a screaming cause for me to claim
a mousemeal crumb
of leniency.
And after the birth? Well littlun disappeared
into some fresh-pressed arms.
My judge had long since died,
and what with all the fledgling thieves to bar,
stinking of its pa, I walked outside.