Jack was the ultimate myth,
a movie star of politics.
Marilyn was too demure
with the older hero played by Reagan.
We headed for Nam willingly,
Some say, we were led by the stars.
We’d do anything for that smile, those eyes.
And what did Marilyn do besides smile?
Somewhere, someone sings
a song of three oranges.
Women wilted in the heat
because they opened up too soon.
What eyes reflect this desert thirst?
People keep talking of Kennedy 20 years later.
How they were afraid to go out into the streets.
How Kennedy’s eyes followed them home,
as if that link were responsible.
We travel from place to place.
Someone asks, where were you
the day Kennedy was shot?
I feel like I’m falling back into the 60s,
searching for a joint and a dry country.
I painted my binder black with shoe polish
the day Kennedy died. I was in the third grade.
Ginny, a dancer, cries as she describes the art of ballet.
Women on a pedestal, kept in the boudoir.
So, keep up on your toes ladies.
Uphold a 200-year-old tradition.
In the aerobics studio, women stomp to the music.
They don’t want the tradition.
Ginny weeps in the isolation that is Chico.
We huddle around the table,
more alone together, than together alone.
It drizzled the day Kennedy died.
An Air Force man from Oregon tells me
about cross country skiing at base camp.
We need to keep the Hamilton Air Force Base
in the military, he says, in case of attack.
As if a tidal flat surrounded by coastal hills
would ward off a nuclear blast.
Some 20 years later, I can still see Kennedy’s eyes
reflected green off the water, in the streets,
and people hesitate, afraid to return a smile.
11/22/1983
Chico
