FDR died on
my mother’s twenty-fifth and
my brother’s second birthday
back in 1945, sixty-three years ago today.
It was in the afternoon when she heard,
after a mid-day party with cake.
She was working in her mother's flowers
in the front yard, near the porch,
and he was playing nearby.
Her mother came out on the porch and said
We just heard that Franklin Roosevelt is dead.
Must have been a lot of mixed feelings
that day.