That Map of Bone and Opened Valves Poem by Ilya Kaminsky

That was the morning strange helicopters circled.
That was the morning we damned only the earth.
We saw a soldier aim and the deaf boy Petya took iron and fire in his mouth.
His father
watched his face on the asphalt, that map of bone and opened valves.
Our puppets in snow broadcasted news
from balconies.
It was the air. Something in the air wanted us too much.
The earth was still.
The tower guards ate cucumber sandwiches.
On the second day
soldiers examined ears of bartenders, of accountants, of soldiers.
They tore Pasha's wife from her bed like a door off a bus.
You wouldn't know the wicked things a silence does to soldiers.
On the fifth day
we damned only the earth,
and I no longer had words to complain
my God and I saw nothing in the sky and stared up
and clearly I did not know why I was alive.
We entered the city that used to be ours
past the theaters and gardens and wooden staircases and wrought iron gates
Be courageous, we said, but no one
was courageous as a sound we
did not hear lifted the gulls off the water.