Plainclothes police link arms with Harvey,
hands in cuffs behind his back.
Arm in arm, for a moment,
intimates.
Steadying the bewildered predator.
Cameras flash, comments hurl.
Pasty in sky blue sweater,
he smirks at first.
He thinks he’s a charming, naughty boy.
No, this is not the red carpet.
Dazed in the dock.
Is he on something? Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan?
Judge reads charges.
“Two violent B felonies
for two forcible sexual assaults,
against two different women.”
Warns:
“If you violate any of the conditions in the order of protection
you are subject to arrest.
Do you understand that?”
His face a mask.
His life
a non-disclosure agreement
with himself.
________
San Francisco psychoanalyst Mary Brady came to poetry after the death of her husband. Her poem, After-Stroke was recently published in The Moth. She has published two non-fiction books: The Body in Adolescence: Psychic Isolation and Physical Symptoms, and Analytic Engagements with Adolescents: Sex, Gender and Subversion, both with Routledge.
________
