Courthouse Rail

Nineteen twenty-three,
they fitted brass along these marble steps.
A century of hands
seeking verdicts, divorces, adoptions.

Each grip its own pressure.
The tentative touch of first testimony,
the white-knuckled grasp
of the accused ascending.

Where the rail turns at the landing,
brass has worn through
to another color.

Not gold, not brown,
but the shade of waiting,
of please,
of let this be over.

Watch the widow climb,
her palm finding the groove
worn by others
seeking what the law calls closure.

Some sections stay bright, unused.
The stretches between
where people pause.
But here, where the grade steepens,
where the elderly stop to breathe,
the brass has gone soft
as old leather.

The bailiff tells me
they tried to polish it once.
But the judge said leave it be.

“That’s not tarnish,” he said.
“That’s the record.”

Feel the temperature change.
Cooler where few touch,
warm where generations have gripped.

At the rail’s end,
where it meets the door
to Courtroom One,
the metal is worn thinnest.

That last grasp before entering.

They’ve replaced the marble steps twice,
the door handles often.
But this rail remains.

Late afternoon,
when the courthouse empties,
light from high windows
finds the rail at such an angle.
You can see the history
written in worn metal.

Some days I stand here,
palm on the warm spots,
reading the braille
of accumulated need.