dividuals are safer in the hands of the majority than in thenhands of appointed guardians.nWith power goes responsibility. Tlie Court, Professor Corwinnwrote, has “made itself morally unanswerable for the safetynand welfare of the nation to an extent utterly without precedentnin judieial annals.” A free society, wrote beamed Hand, “willnfind its own solutions more successfully if it is not constrictednA father dying, perpetually dyingnIn surgery. A sister who called her whore.nA boyfriend who by lying and denyingnKept keys to a wife’s and, also, to her door.nIn a bad year, what gid could ask for more?nTrue, there were several options. She was virginnWhen c|uasi-semi-engaged to what’s-his-namenAmbitious to become a foursquare surgeon—nBut hated by her father just the same.nThen there was the erratic hippie flamenWho out of nowhere and into nowhere flittingnWas, after a bout of Ginsberg, all ablazenTo carry her off to Sydney, Australia, sittingnOn a mandala in a psychedelic dazenHallucinating the nine beanrows they would raise.nBut she, more inclined to another line of Yeats’snAbout the rag-and-bone shop of the heart.nChose to act out a plot from True Confessionsn(Handbook to millions in the lover’s art)nAnd give her underprivileged hymen a head start.nHer stud was well-eciuipped, and also ablenWhen he had serviced her to say goodbyenAnd beat a retreat to the maternal stable,nLeaving it up to her to bear or dienOr have a legal abortion in N.Y.nAfter the white-walled, sterile, antisepticnHospital ministrations, she was back.nDrugged, doctored, emptied, narcoleptic.nAdjusting her daydreams to the rat-race tracknWith thorazine, and a stiff neck and back.nAnywhere, U.S.A., 1973nby Harold McCurdynby judicial intervention.” The Court, at will, takes great chunksnof public business away from public control. The public, atnsome point, will have to regain control of its business. “The judiciary,”nsaid Hand, “will then cease to be independent” andn”its independence will be well lost.” The people, after all, arenthe only ones who can keep liberty in the country.nnFor she was stifhiecked, and her spinal columnnBore up like drop-forged steel against advice.nIt would be sentimental and a bit solemnnTo call her an innocent victim of male vice.nShe hated herself, in fact; and paid the price.nShe could not love unless she was well torturednBy the Impossible. At length she had her man—nOne dreaming like her of a small farm and orchard,nA plain white house, a spring-fed brook that rannBy it, and all else on that honest plan.nAt last, with him, the Past was over and buried.nAnd Life dawned fresh and rose with no Remorse,nExcept for the one flaw; he was married.nAnd to a wife unwilling to divorce.nThe bottle of pills was ready to hand, of course.nAmbulance sirens, not robins bob-bob-bobbing.nComa and convulsions, not orchard air!nWhen she was resurrected, retching and sobbing.nShe did not thank them for their tender care,nBut stared at the blank walls in blank despair.nnnIn Christian times there could have been repentance,nThe slate wiped clean, and in a chastened moodnA humbly murmured Magdalenian sentence.nTo say, in effect; “I kiss the Holy Rood,nAnd will be, O I will, I will be good!”nBut now? The Ten Commandments and the DecretalsnHave met the High Court, and the Court has won.nThe pills, the Pill, curettage, and the needlesnAssure that the world’s business will be done.nAquarius rises, the New Age has begun.nMARCH 1995/17n