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The Loop: JFK Jr

By David GewanterPosted Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2000, at 9:00 PM ET

Graveyard anchormen bumble
their script: he was—he is—he was
lost? Watching the watchers, looking for
an absence, old footage
running the treadmill—

A bride-in-waiting paces her room.
We have adopted your orphan boyhood,
gape as you salute the rolling horizon
of your father's box, too young to grieve,
and later, too politic to run for office.

Elect, unelected, scandalously
temperate—no one was bruised
by your heel. You hoped to climb
down Rushmore
(every woman would give you a landing)

your uxorious breath, a white gauze
sopping the bloodsport, Camelot. Only you
could call Washington's zoo-pit of celebrity
George: easy to bare your teeth
for cameras aimed at your head.

Tonight you squint the horizon,
drained light will steady the hand:
veer right … what is correct? … then right again,
then left. … The sky bewilders a level head,
shreds a plane to confetti—

Alchemical sea washing film from the eye.