Extra: The Week that Marilyn Died

I just read that today is the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death.  For me at least, it's one of those iconic "Where-were-you-when" moments, so I wrote a poem about it several years ago.  I made some revisions and I'm posting it here:

The Week That Marilyn Died

August of  '62, my family camped in High Point State Park.

It rained nearly every day, except the day we went canoeing.

Despite the rain, and the tent that threatened to fall in on us

from its own wetness, we had a good week, except

for one morning when we were cooking breakfast

and listening to the transistor radio –

Marilyn Monroe was dead, it said.

We froze, disbelieving, while the bacon sizzled.

A star, so young and gorgeous - it couldn't be true.

I thought she was the most beautiful woman

I had ever seen. I, the gawky, gangly, eleven-year-old

with horn-rimmed glasses, not quite on the roller coaster

of puberty, who hadn’t yet had his first kiss,

his first prom date, or met the love of his life.

Maybe she was my first love. Back then I thought she was

the ideal against which all women were to be measured.

When I see old photos that preserve her,

twenty-five years younger than I am now,

I still feel a pang of sadness. Like an old girlfriend,

I left her behind, as I moved on to greater things.