WHERE WERE YOU WHEN

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN

The story of how John F. Kennedy was killed
still mixes in with the story of how I heard it

Half a sentence tugging at my greasy sleeve
as I rush from the parts store in Moose Jaw

Picking up more on CBC radio in the pickup
heading west at eighty on Highway One

The urgency of the world waiting
for more news on his condition
not greater in a time of harvest
than my father’s anxiety
to get the damn thing fixed
and the crop off before it rained

The moment in time with Kennedy
succumbed to his head wounds
in a Dallas hospital
was lost in the sound of the combine