When I had my own room
in a separate old house on the Jogersta Farm
in the early 1960s
I had a picture of John F. Kennedy
up on the wall,
flanked by astronauts John Glenn and Walter Schirra,
and with the envelopes with letters from forty penpals
from all over the globe
pinned up around them

When the report on 22nd November 1963 hit,
I was struck to the ground,
I was nothing but a ghostly darkness
for a long time

I wrote in my diary,
which I had started in the summer

In the early 1970s a friend played me
Assassination Raga by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
on an LP from the Fantasy label,
dealing with the murders of John and Robert Kennedy

In the late 1970s I stood at the graves of the brothers
at Arlington, with my wife Judy,
by the eternal flame,
feeling numb

All my tears could do was wet the ground

Now Judy has her own grave, in Baltimore,
and I haven't been there
None of the stones on her headstone
was placed there by me
Yet we were married for seven years

All my tears can do, is wet the ground