Saturday

Truth was
she cared
he be happy,
that's the fame she meant.

Saturday,
the attack on three airfields
near Havana,
by Monday
becomes known
as the Bay of Pigs.

We know so little
immediately.
Time will fix that.
Gusanos living stateside
recall JFK embarrassed,
weeping privately,
steeling his nerves
for the onslaught,
having honored Ike's misbegotten CIA
plan passed to him, standard American
Exceptionalism.

Lovely Melindra takes Bobby to town
and gets him drunk
on Jackson Street, then Pike,
Bobby buttonholing various drunks:
I'm an archaeologist digging up Seattle!
Some guy butts in:
How far down do you have to go?

He saw
her eyes
were turquoise,
sky blue mixed with green;
her blonde hair dyed,
earth brown at the root.

Home, she kept him awake
long enough to please her
and gave him a dream
to sleep off
into tomorrow.

(25 February 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander