The Night Watch of Lady Justice

She keeps no hours,
this sentinel with star-bright eyes
and shoulders draped in moonlight.
Her gaze pierces marble facades
and cardboard shelters alike.

In one hand, her scales dance —
delicate as spider silk,
stubborn as ancient roots.
Gold coins and tears weigh the same here;
whispered prayers and shouted demands
balance perfectly in her bowls.

They try to blind her, of course.
Slip silver beneath her blindfold,
whisper sweet nothings of privilege and power.
But she sees through skin to bone,
through bone to truth,
through truth to consequence.

Her sword remembers everything:
the weight of every judgment,
the edge of every choice.
It cuts both ways —
through silk and burlap,
through crown and collar,
through pride and desperation.

When they ask whose side she’s on,
she answers in riddles of light:
“I stand with the dawn
that wakes both palace and prison,
with the rain that falls
on both judge and judged,
with the earth that welcomes
all bodies home.”

At her feet, the powerful learn to kneel,
the powerless learn to stand,
and the scales keep dancing,
keep dancing,
in perfect, terrible balance.