There is no privacy in this world
Although you’ve done your best to protect it
And even though sometimes it seems
Only darkness
Your pancreas our hope and medicine
Each treatment
No one knows the depth of your strength
When you speak truth to reason
As reason has been your mantra
For you too were marginalized
And overcame
Your optimism our balm as those of us
Who do not pray pray for you
This is not a contradiction
It’s just commonsense
Your other guide in all things constitutional
We need you
For when we laugh with you on Saturday Night
And as we follow your body’s betrayals
And rebounds
You are radiant in your radiation
Mind over matter
As perseverance is our gender’s greatest attribute
And you our supreme example
So unfair that after all you have given
To the simple equation of equality, the argument
That your body is your own to own and decide for
That your legacy should be constrained
By what we all have in common
Mortality
And yet
We hear you are back in the Supreme Court’s
Exercise room where you do justice lifting the weight
That a lifetime term of office requires
Your honor.
________
Yvonne Daley is a career journalist who returned to poetry for sanity in these difficult times. She lives in Vermont, still a sane place.
________
