11/22/63

I keep watching the moment the head jerks back.

The pink dress doesn’t know it yet.

The hand lifts as if to catch God

mid-flight,

but he is a lousy bird.

They say it was the magic bullet,

but I think about the magic *before* the bullet.

What he thought about

when he blinked that morning.

Maybe a sandwich.

Maybe death,

soft as linen,

folded in the corner of the brain like a napkin.

I don’t believe in America.

But I believe in the myth of a man

sitting down for breakfast.

I believe in the way blood finds

its way through silk.

I believe in the way

you didn’t look at me when you said

“we’re not the same anymore.”

Assassination is a kind of punctuation.

What if love ends with a period

you didn’t put there?

What if you’re sitting in a convertible,

and the world gets quiet—

not with awe,

but with aiming?

In another life

I rewind the tape.

I say:

Don’t wave yet.

Don’t trust the sun.

Don't open your body like a speech.

We are all

trying to hold our heads together.

Some of us just fail more visibly.