Dirty hands in Equity
You come to the court of conscience
with soil under your nails.
You come with the dust of the struggle still on your palms,
the grit of survival ground into your skin.
He who seeks equity must come with clean hands,
says the law.
But what if the water was rationed?
What if the soap was sold
only to those already clean?
Your dirt tells the truth the clean do not know:
how hard the ground was,
how long you dug before you reached the gate,
how some stains are not sin
they are evidence.
They say, Wash first.
You ask: Who built the basin?
Who owns the water?
And why is your cleanliness the price of my justice?
So you stand there,
unscrubbed,
unapologetic,
holding your truth like a stone
that once was a burden
and now is a witness.
Let my hands testify, you say.
Let the dirt speak.
For sometimes equity must see
not only what you have done,
but what has been done to you
and why clean hands are a luxury
some cannot afford
in an unclean world.
The stain is not just on you.
It is in the system that calls your survival soiled,
then offers to cleanse you
of the very marks
that prove you fought to get here.
Equity, then
if it is real
must sometimes roll up its sleeves,
touch the earth on your hands,
and say:
I, too, will be unclean with you,
until the scales balance
not only in law,
but in life.
(The figure man who loves Alphabets)
