The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Affidavit by Starr Davis

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Claudia Santos, is from Affidavit by Starr Davis (Hanging Loose Press 2026).

ZOOM COURT

	and even though it is virtual, i still cringe	the first time seeing my abuser’s face since i left him 5 months ago	he is suing me for our pound a flesh, a baby i never thought i would have	he is wearing the shirt i bought him for our maternity photoshoot.	he is confident. i am not.
he knows this. so, i already know i have lost.	i am miles away from him sitting in an apartment with pink walls. i hate pink.	but it made the whole house feel like a nursery	secret: i wanted the house to swaddle me	halfway across the country in the middle of the winter with a newborn	back to the women who know me by my scent
court isn’t a new word for us.	my mama says, “back in my day, a man would just let you leave.”	she is speaking of my father.	when i tell them i have been served and must attend, not in- person but via zoom court on video, they all laugh and ask me if i am joking. in- person	“this will be over in 5 minutes,” a lawyer assures me.	i place a sticky-note over his face on my laptop screen.
the gallery grid keeps shifting as people leave the virtual courtroom as cases are dismissed. this will be me soon, i think to myself.	my little human is with someone safe, somewhere away from me and our nursery home.	the lawyer encourages me that i am doing this for her.	five months postpartum, i am still squishy around my abdomen and wet around the nipple.	courts usually rule in favor of mothers, all kinds of people tell me.	he is younger than me, my abuser.
just a boy, my grandmother likes to remind me.	what would the difference be, if i were dealing with a man?	a white woman judge confirms sex is just a construct.	she places my body and all things belonging under the jurisdiction of a purple moon.	the sticky- note falls off.	i see myself on the screen, crying beside him.

Starr Davis (she/her) is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Academy of American Poet’s Poem-a-Day, and The Rumpus. She was the 2024 Writing Freedom Fellow with Haymarket Books and the Mellon Foundation.

Claudia Santos (she/her) is a Mexican reader and writer. She received the PECDA Colima 2024 writing grant for her non-fiction work and was a Sophia-FILCO Young Writers 2025 finalist for her poetry work. She is currently pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature as a EMJM scholarship recipient.