ekphrasis of the end of the camelot era; or, showing my girlfriend the zapruder film
by Adonis Borer
University of La Verne
Adonis Borer is a Mexican-American Jewish undergraduate student from the University of La Verne in southern California. His works feature the often-clashing points of intersectionality within his marginalized identities. Select previous publications include Prism Review, Toyon Literary Magazine, and Oakland Arts Review. He can be found on Instagram here: @bloodyscarab.
poor jackie, in glamorous pink,
watches her husband
shatter,
rhinestones of shimmering rouge
into her lap.
reaching for his skull (frame 371),
clutching what was left of him (frame 408),
perhaps the way she had after that dinner party (1952).
“i just want to be with you, and i want to die with you, and the children do, too —
than live without you.”
she cannot let go of him when they reach parkland,
as if deep down she knows that eventually
they will parade a dozen conspiracies to justify
why her king arthur
“oh jack, what have they done?”
sprayed the same blood as the
cubans and the
germans and
mlk and
malcolm x and
vietnam and
next-door neighbors and their
own children and
nothing prepares you for seeing the president’s head
explode
in 486 frames.