for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

 

 

In the silent well of courtroom 9 a clerk

reads out the letters

 

These were deliberate choices

These were political acts

 

The scene was like a field

of slaughtered birds  not birds

 

After the field, they say, you bought half a gallon of milk

 

Jahar,  let’s talk about the boat

Let’s talk about the petrol

and your hands                  ~

 

Let’s talk about your brother and the letters

of your name

 

          say D

zh

 

       kh,  little v       ~

 

You wear bear fur for a cape

to cover your shimmer-eyed hands,

your hands, when you hold them up, are

brimming with lice

 

Every living thing once was rock, Jahar

 

In blood, the minerals of the rock

 

You walk out under the light tubes, the greasy

glass you say nothing

 

Sometimes people stop talking that doesn’t

mean we didn’t love them

 

Do we feel better now… Next year

will not be better, Jahar

 

This country is going to try to kill us all, Jahar

 

~  ( boy of mineral, who was lying in a boat )

 

No— I can’t  explain my own devastation

 

          Can you describe it?

 

   Jahar— I can.