When It Was 1963
It was 1963. Ancient history to most of you; I was 16.
JFK was our hero, not the airport, the president.
In 1963 I married Dick Van Dyke and John Kennedy.
Wore the Big Dipper on my head.
Teased my hair into a Mary Tyler Moore flip.
Took a picture with my cell phone and sent it to John Lennon.
JFK was assassinated in my gym class.
I took the yellow school bus home and watched and
watched him get shot by Lee Harvey Oswald
on my rabbit-eared TV.
Dear TV,
How could
you let
our handsome
president
get shot?
I DVR’d November 22 in Dallas.
It was 1963 for a century.
I saw Jack Ruby kill Oswald with my ruby gun
seventeen times.
I twisted the night away in my tie-dyed flannel night gown. .
In 1963 I had a dream about Martin Luther King, Jr.
I liberated Montgomery, Alabama from organic produce.
That was the year of circle pin handcuffs, LSD,
moody blue curfews, flaming Cliff notes.
I danced on the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC, while
listening to the Beatles on my iPod.
I held Ringo’s hand and
wanted to hold your hand.
Saw Lyndon Johnson get sworn in as our
36th president in Air Force One,
or was it the Texas school book depository?
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up,“
I wrote in my term paper.
Hooked my veins to the percolator and wrote for two days.
Dear TV,
Why did you
kill
four little girls
in Sunday school
in Birmingham?
I flipped between ABC NBC CBS and CNN,
but the news was all the same.
I ate the TV rabbit ears between two Oreos.
Surfed the USA with the Beach Boys.
I was the little surfer girl.
By texting,
I dumped my boyfriend for Brian Wilson.
In 1963 we camped at the Newport Folk Festival to see
Bobby Dylan blowing in the wind.
I took a pill that made me taller than the Empire State Building.
You could hear me singing halfway round the world.
Cacti Fur 