the beginning of this week found me on the shores of lake champlain, fielding phone calls from friends and family, worried about me and unaware that i wasn't home in boston. thursday night, back at work in cambridge, there were endless streams of police cars, troopers, and cetera racing down mass ave., and by the morning the whole city was in lockdown.
for days, even while the identities of the bombers were completely unknown to the public or myself, i was thinking about my first days in moscow, almost ten years ago. it seemed as if a suicide bomber was killing himself every other day, in the subways, in red square, taking theaters hostage. the facades of buildings downtown were draped in bandages. there were huge holes ripped in the roads. the wailing of the women on the news broadcasts became all-too familiar. widows with names not-so-different from the brothers tsarnaev and maps of the caucasus were indelibly impressed on my mind. i was barely a man, and this was my visceral (as opposed to historical) introduction to terrorism. i had been in oklahoma city after the murrah building was destroyed and new york after the trade centers fell, but those had been six years apart, in remote cities. there was the news, and then the aftermath. in moscow i was walking past these scenes again every day. i returned there regularly, and every time there had been another incident.
in russian, they call it ter-act for short.
.
.
.
for days, even while the identities of the bombers were completely unknown to the public or myself, i was thinking about my first days in moscow, almost ten years ago. it seemed as if a suicide bomber was killing himself every other day, in the subways, in red square, taking theaters hostage. the facades of buildings downtown were draped in bandages. there were huge holes ripped in the roads. the wailing of the women on the news broadcasts became all-too familiar. widows with names not-so-different from the brothers tsarnaev and maps of the caucasus were indelibly impressed on my mind. i was barely a man, and this was my visceral (as opposed to historical) introduction to terrorism. i had been in oklahoma city after the murrah building was destroyed and new york after the trade centers fell, but those had been six years apart, in remote cities. there was the news, and then the aftermath. in moscow i was walking past these scenes again every day. i returned there regularly, and every time there had been another incident.
in russian, they call it ter-act for short.
.
.
.
for the marathon dead and wounded
mid
april
passing
manchester
the
cherries have
no
stones
washing
their wings
in
the river
wind
not
nearly
as
material as
those
bald
merrimack
pylons
i
am the maculate
receipt
of
bestial capital
and
care
barely
thirty
but
i can already
feel
the worms
between
my legs
the
black mold
fastened
to
my bones
and
in my memory
it
was
the
same hour
as
the cherries
the
finish line
burst
into flower






