March 17th, 2021

LAW AND ORDER SVU

I'm just putting this poem here because it's not been published anywhere yet, and I feel every day that it's so important for women to be believed.  It seems like such a simple thing==to be believed. IT IS NO SMALL THING. Though Mariska Hargitay only "plays" Olivia, I have a deep sense that she believes, too! Thanks, Mariska. @Mariska

 
In Defense of Binge-Watching Law and Order SVU
 
I blame the early dark
for crumpling my body into a heap
with the remote stuck on Ion Television
 
watching Law and Order SVU that opens
with this blast: In the criminal justice system,
sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous—
 
plots intent on scouring for the truth
fiercely (unlike executive tweets that toy
with veracity, name new scapegoats 24/7).
 
It’s a show, a system, more bent on making order
than chaos. I watch the likes of Olivia,
(now sergeant) and detectives Fin and John,
 
Amanda and Nick, (sometimes gone rogue)
tracking down clues to murders and rapes,
hate crimes and pornography when
 
they’re not trying to patch relationships
with disgruntled sons and con-artist sisters
and to manage estranged wives and addictions
 
to gambling in their on-screen lives.
Throw in a whiff of stolen moments for romance.
There’s a semblance of reality in this fiction,
 
stories often “ripped from the headlines,”
but it’s the victims swimming in self-doubt
that arrest me, victims afraid to verbalize
 
what’s happened to them, reluctant
to press charges, to appear in court for fear
of backlash and the judgy public, victims,
 
the ones so seldom believed. It’s Olivia,
she with the dark laser eyes penetrating
the terror after the terror of attack.
Olivia trying to fortify the wounded
with the same words, in every show the same--
I believe you, I believe.