John's Dead

I remember saying the words
still shocked.

I had heard
by accident.
Mom and her sisters
and a cousin or two
hair up in curlers
or being teased into
those high doos that women
wore back then
were getting ready
for the funeral.

I was eleven and he had been
my closest substitute for
...........................a big brother.
He was with me the day
of JFK's funeral.
They shared the name
.....................John Kennedy.
The war that was never a war
had taken him from us.

I had watched one funeral on television.
The other I didnt see at all.