The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

It was an ecstasy of confusion. He had been shot.Like the life of a flower in time-lapse photographyhis final thought ruminated, then closed.No one could know with what discord or grandeurfrom the slumping body that thought was greeted.

Crammed in the penult, in the palmat the end of the mind, the lank body,cleaved of its cleverness, now in the simpler gritof repose, shushed and droppedcomo un zapato sin pie, como un traje sin hombre.

They hurried him out, more gross than regal,under the caving awnings of merriment.Then - screaming. Then - mayhem.Already the minutes were swelling to decades.

What nostalgia for life the dying have.They are the only ones who are certainthat life was lived and not imagined.