Defendant

His frown directed sweats from hairline to temple and neck, his eyes held fright like a cup holds black coffee in some overlit complicit petrol-station roadstop restaurant intimating something distasteful but untried; bought out of habit like an afterthought insinuating itself into second nature. The styrofoam of his collared shirt stiff and mundane, destined to be disposed of with dregs gritting the white and staining the armpits, now lies crushed, abandoned on his laundry floor.