APHRODITE
She was smiling to herself
among the heavy-scented magnolia bowers,
chic, with shining eyes…
Thomas Kinsella
She dined with those who ruled the earth,
who stood in her aura, close to every nuance
of the stoic smile, the cool poise –
the one we saw as she tended her American idol
in the reel of film from the home movie camera.
I saw her once, not in the year of the assassin,
that grey November on Dealey Plaza
and not in her stint as Aphrodite in Washington
nor as Warhol’s Madonna with the red stain
on her hem and in her arms her own Sir Lancelot
but into a throng divided between inquisitors
and those who stayed silent
she came among us, out of her widow’s veil.
I saw her walk through rooms of rare editions,
portraits, mirrors that caught that shine in her eyes –
their iridescence.