‘Shock Wave’: A Compelling Poem About the Boston Marathon Bombings
Leslie McGrath's poem gives us an intimate look into a person's mind in the immediate aftermath of the April 15, 2013, tragedy.
The running shoes left as a makeshift memorial near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon was part of a 2014 exhibit at the Boston Public Library, "Dear Boston: Messages From the Marathon Memorial." (AP / Elise Amendola)
Leslie McGrath’s poem gives us an intimate look into a person’s mind in the immediate aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings that took place on April 15, 2013. Listen to McGrath read “Shock Wave” and read along, below.
Leslie McGrath reads “Shock Wave”
Shock Wave
By Leslie McGrath
Boston Marathon, 2013
Blow black powder and shrapnel blow a deathwind
then follows another kind of detonation, this one inward.
In the brain’s chapel one pearled sulcus is aroused by sudden fear while others snap into lockdown.
There are moments when survival depends on suspicion and the mind’s ear turns vigilante
gum heard as gun coffee heard as coffin dread as dead
There are moments that become eras Like this one like this.
Leslie McGrath is a poet and literary interviewer. She is the author of “Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage” (2009), a poetry collection, and two chapbooks, “Toward Anguish” (2007) and “By the Windpipe” (2014). McGrath’s latest book is a satiric novella in verse, “Out From the Pleiades” (Jaded Ibis, 2014). She teaches creative writing and literature at Central Connecticut State University and is series editor of The Tenth Gate, a poetry imprint of The Word Works press in Washington, DC.
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