What sick soul builds bombs
aimed at the feet of those
who run?

How do we pray for
those whose
most evident gift is that of
destruction, who find
delight in carnage, who
crave blood and bone
belonging to another?

Thirteen-year old Isaiah
stood beside me that morning,
arms outstretched,
part way through a
psych stay.

I can control the wind
he said.
Like this.
He dropped his arms like wings,
pulled them to his sides,
turned them palm up.

Later,
driving past entire hedge rows of
blooming azaleas
I listened to stories of
police chasing bombers through Boston,
radio squawking with
cordoned streets and lockdown.
Twitter feeds full of
rumor, fear, the
restless exhilaration of
near proximity to
disaster.

They scoured the streets
searching
house to house.
Shot Tamerlan Tsarnaev while I
slept.
Shut down a city while I
showered, while I
stopped at the bank,
filled out raffle tickets for the school.

SWAT teams while I watered the plants.
House to house while I returned phone calls,
spoke to a board meeting
full of young blonde women and
one brunette
one man
one black woman.

I drove through a village
hatchback open
left safely untended then
filled with dozens of tulips.
A feast of cut flowers.

I wished them on a frightened city far away.
I wished them on a frightened murderous young man
days ago
before this happened.