The death of Senator Kennedy (1990)

Can you believe it? In that little kitchen,

painted walls, late sixties sink and faucet,

the candidate relaxed, yet taut in victory,
interviewed by Andrew West when wham. Slugs,

one upon another and in another room

the scream of a woman.

There is a terror that slices our breath

as we would slice bread - as Beelzebub
appears in the mushroom cloud or barroom glass.

He dies in twenty-six hours, the sky, dark, darkens,
the future takes, in horror of indecision,
the wrong way, the wrong way.

Then the train and even now when I read

I shake as Charles Quinn sees, atop a knoll,

a fire truck, five bronze firemen standing

with hands over hearts, beacon fluttering red,

as the coffin passes, as he weeps to know

it contains ourselves.