Jackie Kennedy Looks Out of an Eighth-Floor Window One Autumn Morning
a poem
Birds sling themselves
from the branch of the
Yoshino cherry
to the second mimosa
then off into a neighbor’s
thirty-foot oak.
They flitter and chatter,
twittering about with
early morning hellos
and how are yous
and I love what you’ve done
with your nest, the
fledglings are growing so fast,
their mouths agape waiting
for an oblivious worm.
These mornings I sip my coffee
and read whatever book is near-
one on Kennedy in the travails of
possible war, a man full of crises:
Communists and Cubans, missiles and
mistresses, back pain and head pain.
That warm autumn morning,
did he and Jackie wake up to birds
fluttering outside the window?
Did Jackie pause to glance out
and think this Texas sunrise sure is
something, but how, oh how
could anyone bear this humidity?
Even in November, it forces
a staunch Republican to undo
the top button, make way for
air to reach his leathery skin.
Did Jackie see a mockingbird float by?
And did she, like us, take for granted
the innocence of things?
Did Jack unfurl the sheets in Room 850 and
amble out of bed, not even noticing
the sunrise or the
casual greetings of birds?
These are things I wondered about
as I took another sip. How maybe the
sounds we hear from songbirds are
not really songs after all.
Perhaps it’s their way of protesting things:
the deforestation of land, the imminent domain
clearing away their homes, forcing them to camp
alongside filthy pigeons and alley cats or atop
the Forth Worth-Sheraton.
A robin flew by to give a solemn nod,
a melancholy tweet to Jackie for events to come.
A dove flying over Dealey Plaza warning
motorcades of trouble, urging the president to
put on a hat, a big Texas-sized hat,
one to shield the sun or anything else.
An eagle, the one witnesses saw days
before, one that would fly high about the
Dallas skyline was nowhere to be found.
Not for several hours later would they
locate him, feathers plucked, beak taped shut,
stuffed in a closet in a book depository.
I finished my coffee, twitching at the thought
of a First Lady scooping her husband’s hopes
and dreams in her hands, unable to
piece them back together.
That she would wake up, alone in bed,
and no longer pull back the pink satin curtain
in her bedroom. That she would no longer
peek out the blinds for signs of autumn rain
or spring snow. Cursed be the birds, she thought.
The ones she believed were simply
saying hello, good morning, have a nice day.
The ones who now give a snide look, motioning
with an upward drift of wings, a quick shift
of a beak that vultures have landed and
she must protect her young.