Two old, veteran, defense
lawyers, one, never that
competent but wanting you

to conclude that his acumen
was a bright lumen, and the
other, once a cagey cat but

moving toward mouseness,
waxed, as in hardened; let’s
just leave it at waxed and

leave out eloquent, and
waned, as in weakened,
(waned very plain) loved

to hear themselves and
seemingly wanted all to
bow before each’s pièce

de résistance and each’s
incomparable eloquence.
Perhaps their goal was to

baffle, becloud, befuddle,
bewilder, complicate, conceal,
confound, darken, fog, fuddle,

muddle, obscure, perplex,
puzzle or just plain obfuscate
but these two senior members

of the “Over-the-Hill-Gang”
wanted (with what they believed
in their misguided hubris was

their professorial eloquence)
the jurors to take the bate but
the effect simply was to numb

and incapacitate. Lectures
ended, the defendant fell
asleep and catatonic TV

commentators sat for a while
without letting out a peep
and then maybe this was just

all about their connection
with a deceased, trafficker
in underage sex and bluff

and blunder directed to
an audience of one, the
one who fell asleep.