one reason i work for global neighborhood.

Courtroom hallways always smell
like ship hulls,
the sky above them somewhere,
no matter what color it is
always holds a sea monster waiting in ambush
where I come from
the building is large, and beautiful
but inside fluorescent burned above us
like an acid candle
the prayers were Styrofoam coffee cups
the wait was five hours tense,
his name was C-e-u, Ceu,
a Chinese refugee
less than six months into the American Dream.
I don’t think he had ever worn a suit
before that day;
there was no translator for his trial.