Comes now the Plaintiff, praying for restitution

There is a term for this
(in latin, which always conjures
Antique Legitimacy--
slight of hand impressing weak of mind)

Damnum absque injuria

But we, being legal realists,
only learned that this was code
for what the law hasn't figured out yet
(appropriate, I suppose, because I cannot
understand this either)

Anymore than I could understand
why her mother slipped away
(while we tried with forced laughter
to make lemon cancer)
piece by piece, swollen face belying
wasted body, wasted mind
Such waste!

And yet another lost,
a family lost-- sad pieta
mother mourning child
grown, and then depated

and another...
Loss in threes (it's always three,
even in the law.
Cuchulain to the Constitution)
The last a good man, leaving a wife
still grateful for the luck of
finding love in this life (though she had to lose it twice)
Third times the charm-though we know
she covets that final embrace,
we hate to lose her.

In hallowed Harvard halls they teach
Courses in both of life's guarantees
-which is how I'll learn too well
the dead man's thoughts.
(Let the horse snicker. At least I
was of some use, and did not make the dead
Mute Miltons. Have some respect)

But they do not have to teach
how much it hurts
to have no remedy
in God or in law


But know that it is wrong.