Jackie

 

mdmorrissey, 1994 (http://www.mdmorrissey.info/jackie ). Please distribute widely (thanks!).

 

O you died so suddenly

we'll never know

what sealed your lips,

if it was fear, or pride

or just indifference.

 

Will you tell us now

ex post facto, posthumous express

who deed the dirty did

and why,

as if we didn't know?

 

I've always fancied you

especially these past few years,

having seen you in the movies

in pink and pillbox, wisp of hair

waved deftly aside by a gloved hand.

 

Come to my slum, we'll speak French,

and you will tell me what it's like

to know and not to say,

to have no language

or love outside the family

or class, only conviction?

 

But are you, sweet heart,

so convinced, even now,

that silence and the gilded cage

are beautiful?  Are you,

after all, one of us?