John Junior

(John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999)

We were looking for a leader

With a worldview we’ve read about.

You saluted early and we brought you into our arms.

Now at 38 with gusto and a tousle,

You are the gadfly counsel,

But so exposed.

Like your father

And aunts and uncles,

You step into storms.

And you deliver yourself and kin

Into a long list of Kennedy cases:

Brave and often brazen.

We would watch from TV sets

And wonder for so long:

would you find a cause for the ages?

In the end, those pictures of you

were just a promise of you.