For the world's more full of weeping than you
can understand

- W. B. Yeats

Prologue

The tanks, two of them, twins, pyramids of petroleum,
rose above Pearl Street Stadium.
I was sure they would explode one day, sure of it.
I was relieved when they emptied,
and only the steel beams stood in the sky
like a t-rex skeleton, harmless in the museum.
But they would refill, rearm, and the worry would restart
because I knew things explode.

I.

We passed under the air raid shelter sign,
everyday reminders like the Crucifix in each classroom.
We knew to run there like we knew the names Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
sacrificed so my Uncle George could get home alive.
(Uncle George, the saddest man I ever knew,
who never told war stories except once
to my dad when they were deep in drink.)
We knew the whole world could explode.

II.

My sister was the Christmas Angel,
skating, spinning, spiraling on the Prudential Ice
under the great Christmas tree lit with ooh's and ahs,
my father telling me it was a gift from Halifax, Nova Scotia,
a thank you to Boston for what it had done after the Mont Blanc
drifted aflame towards the harbor
with 400,000 pounds of TNT.
Whole cities could explode.

V.

We were on our way to Belmont Hill
for early morning practice
when Dennis Murphy's dad
told us the story of the Great Molasses Flood,
a 15 foot wave that rolled over Boston's North End,
drowning everyone and everything in its sweet wake.
We went to mass in our hockey gear and I prayed
because whole neighborhoods could explode.

Epilogue

I let the class listen all morning
as the news grew darker and darker.
It spun beyond understanding,
and I wanted to say something about weeping.
But all I knew was there were two of them, twins,
towers of trade, that rose above the city,
and I added them to my list:
Buildings explode.