Standing, 1964

See her clothes as they drop in the yellow weeds—
tee shirt and shorts in the upraised arms of the yarrow.
Her arms are lifted, too—she exults or prays—
she is narrow and flat, her skin white as surrender.
The thatchy back of her head is a patch of knots,
her teeth are rotted, but, then, so are theirs, bared
as the boys reach to touch her, not unkindly.
They are sixteen, and she is half their age. Above them
a star goes dark, or many darken—a sky-cleaving jet
unfurls four slender trails. She feels like the pinecone seed
that split the boulder, the bullet exploding the head
of the president: once invisible, once inconsequential,
now singular, at last in her rightful place.