I am wearing a sweater
gray as the Montana sky.
The newsroom is dead quiet 
as everyone dines at Delilah’s

except the city editor
and me, the rookie reporter,
who eat burgers and fries
from Fritz’s Cafe next door.

Ketchup drips like blood droplets
when Ike swivels his chair
around to read the Associated
Press tape snaking and hissing. 

President Kennedy has been shot. 

Before we even hear his fate,
reporters rush in, phones start
shrieking, typewriters banging
like gunfire and presses rolling.

Our breath sends distress signals
in the frigid air as we rush
into the streets where crowds
gather and the sky darkens

shouting until we are hoarse:

The president is dead.
Read all about it.
                        

I wish I had simply asked
Charley Pride about his first
top ten single at the press luncheon
instead of telling him
I was from Montana
where he pitched in the minors 
and sang in honky tonks
before making it to the opry.

I wish he hadn’t said: Make room
for my Montana Buddy, 
and sat me next to him
where we reminisce about 
Big Sky Country. I wish 
I hadn’t told my mother 
about the luncheon
and she hadn’t asked for his
autograph. 

Otherwise, I wouldn’t
be watching myself on television
kissing the handsome country singer
on the cheek after he scribbles
To Mom Fondly Charley on a napkin.

I am grateful my mother is back home
sound asleep as the anchors speculate:
Who’s the young blonde?
Does his wife know?
                        

Maybe it’s the champagne
or his gravelly voice
singing Inka Dinka Doo
and saying Good Night
Mrs. Cavanaugh
wherever you are
but when he leans
over the roast beef
and mashed potatoes
and puckers his lips,
I giggle like Goldie,
close my eyes and give
him a big fat smackeroo.
In the photo, we are laughing,
me in my twenties
in a red, white and blue
mini dress, red pumps
and a platinum pixie cut
and he in his sixties 
in a black suit and hat,
white shirt, striped tie
and my lip prints
in Revlon’s Ruby Red
on his schnozzola.