The Truth Machine, As Demonstrated by Judge Judy
She is not a polygraph, does not cuff
the accused to take their vital signs,
display their heart rates, breathing
patterns, systolic and diastolic pressures,
the perspiration a swipe of Secret
can’t control volleying on a monitor
like the radar of a storm no one can
escape, state of emergency that preempts
even this daytime television show
every thirty minutes as required
by station policies. Instead the Truth
Machine uses her senses to gauge
theirs. She feels their bladders fill
and shift like they’re her own, feels them
rage-clench their fists, cross their arms
in defense or defiance. The Truth Machine
sniffs their bacterial sweat from her bench,
through each impermeable screen. She hears
their tongues un-vivify, dry out
like cellophane, their words sticking
to the plastic of their palates. A latter-
day Medusa, she forces them to look
in her eyes—not over there, not down—
and freeze themselves in the lake effect
reflection of their lies, even the ones so
far removed from hue that they are liquid
paper. The Truth Machine is a goddess
sorting out every bit of human mishegoss,
deconstructing the tzimmes, but sometimes,
as deities and devices can, she happens
on a Perseus so practiced in his terrifying
deceptions that he gets off a shot at her head.
by Jen Karetnick
courtesy Jewish Women Amplified
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