The Shot That Was Heard Around The World

Today, forty-nine years ago, a man was shot in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 P.M.

All day
Hiding from the sun
Waiting for the golden one
Waiting for your fame
After the parade has gone

Outside was a happy place
Every face had a smile like the golden face
For a second
Your knuckles white as your fingers curled
The shot that was heard around the world
For a second

It took seconds of your time to take his life
It took seconds

Seconds

For a second

Ten years ago today...

1941 - 2002

I Am My Mother’s Keeper

In the end, she lives in all our former homes at once.
My father is gone, destroyed by his own hand,
it ripples backward and forward, like
he was never there. He was never anywhere.
It’s just me and her.

In New York, she has cancer, tumors everywhere.
They grow on her back, strangle her spine,
kill nerves, paralyze. She can’t walk. She is in her bedroom,
upstairs. Mine is next door, with my toy box.
I bring her crackers, water, tea.
There’s not much I can do to help.

In Miami, she sleeps a lot. In the bed
with the purple velvet bedspread, the
curtains are drawn. Her dresser holds her clothes,
her jewelry sits on top, next to pictures of
her and my father. Her things.
In the same building, in the same unit:
#313. Just me and her. It always was.

In California, chemo, radiation make her sick.
She is in her bedroom at the back of the house.
She cries, I try to comfort her. Her head hurts.
She is wearing a fuzzy white robe that smells like
her perfume.

In central Florida, her wheelchair is next to the bed.
She wakes crying, asking for my father.
I have to sort her meds, give her these pills:
Tegretol
Elavil
Megace
Lasix
Colace
Paxil
Zofran
Reglan
Compazine
Ativan
Dilaudid
Fentanyl.

©JEF 2007

Eleven years ago today...

1939 - 2001

The Night My Father Left His Life

The fifteen-foot walk to the shed took hours,
hiking alone with his back to the house,
to his cats he fed for the last time,
to me driving through the mountains
three thousand miles away,
to my mother behind him,
next to him, asleep inside him.
The air was cool. It was night.
Stars were shining silver-white,
the ground sighed as his feet sunk
into the soft wet cushion of green grass.
He did not see colors.
He turned the handle, did not hear
the click or the whoosh of the door.
This is the night he destroyed himself.
He removed his glasses, set them down carefully,
took his place on the floor and
fumbled in the dark with the gun.
His final walk, his glasses,
his breath coming short and scared,
his finger, the ripping sound
tearing through the still darkness—
all of this, his final gift to me
as I, from a cold beach,
watched meteors streak
through the sky.

©JEF 2005