America's Queen

Written for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, inspired by her strength and poise after the death of John F. Kennedy.

It's a gaslight situation,
the downfall of a nation.
Gunshots bringing more than death to just one man.

The tears were in your eyes
but, for the world, you didn't cry.
The strongest of them all, you held his hand.

His final moments dragging on,
you told yourself you must be strong,
and you hoped that Caroline would understand.

Your only other bother?
Little John would have no father.
There'd be no one there to make that boy a man.

Cameras flashed like lightning
catching images so frightening
that, to this day, they still affect our land.

But it was bloodstains on your dress
that told the world he was at rest.
Then there was grief that, for this country, you'd withstand.

You never told the story
that is Oswald's crowning glory-
you took the past and buried it in sand.

It was your grace that kept our nation
from collapsing in Damnation
and, to you, we give an everlasting hand.

For even in your death you're seen
as the past, the present, and future Queen
of a nation that, because of you, still stands.

And written on your epitaph
is "In darkness she had made us laugh."
For, when no one else could, we said "Jackie can."