SIXTEEN
JACKIES

The second row is devastating: your soft
blue cheek, Jackie, black eyelash and diagonal
bang splitting the frame, four times. I hear
the Oath of Office through history's gauze—
see Johnson sworn in, your perfect
lower lip all alone: an acrylic gondola floating
over your chin. What bulb struck the Aqua Net
to glare your hair with light? Its coil is still white
hot when I hold my hand out, when I say
I'm so sorry, darling. I want to right Warhol's
wrong—slide your photo up until that gash
of darkness over you is gone. The repetition
is supposedly supposed to numb us—
Andy said something dumb like that. It doesn't.
Each of the 16 lands like a blow, brutal reiteration
that what has happened happens still:
we sit in the crosshairs of time's flat circle
as it twists a glass scope from its own grassy
knoll. Even then, we're less the target
than the collateral. Until we're not. But this
isn't about us, it's about you. Jackie O,
if you're still stunned, you're still smiling, too:
as good as on the tarmac as after the crack
of the Carcano rifle. The sun is striking you
now, the cameras roll, and red roses
roil with joy against your pink Chanel.