i turned on the computer this morning to the news that sandra day o'connor is retiring off of the supreme court. my friend vito posted this poem on her lj, and i find it compelling enough to post it here. (also, it's much more eloquent than my immediate reaction.)

Mark Jarman, Unholy Sonnet #9

Someone is always praying as the plane
Breaks up, and smoke and cold and darkness blow
Into the cabin. Praying as it happens,
Praying before it happens that it won't.
Someone was praying that it never happen
Before the first window on Kristallnacht
Broke like a wine glass wrapped in bridal linen.
Before it was imagined, someone was praying
That it be unimaginable. And then,
The bolts flew off and people fell like bombs
Out of their names, out of the living sky.
Surely, someone was praying. And the prayer
Struck the blank face of the earth, the ocean's face,
The rockhard, rippled face of facelessness.

i'd love to be wrong. i'd love to be proven to be too cynical. i'd love to hear that when i asked for morning-after pill recipes in my livejournal last night that that was silly because there won't be a time when i'll have trouble getting prescribed it if i need it. i really want that to be true. but i'm having a hard time believing that this morning.